Movie review: Love, Rosie

Hello!

Couple of months ago, I found a Beyond the Trailer channel’s review of Love, Rosie (directed by Christian Ditter) movie trailer and was intrigued to see this movie. As I always do, I decided to read the book first.

Book

The movie Love, Rosie is based on 2004 Cecelia Ahern’s book Where Rainbows End. (Her first and most famous book is P.S. I Love you which was made into a movie in 2007). Where Rainbows End is written in a different style than you would expect: it doesn’t have a continual, flowing story but is constructed from letters, e-mails and notes from one character to other. When I was younger, I have read a few books written in this style and didn’t like them much but this one was a total exception. I loved the fact that I got to know the same story from various characters’ point of view. Speaking about characters, the book follows the life of Rosie Dunne and those near and dear to her. Most important of them, is her best friend from childhood – Alex. The book covers the period of more than 40 years: from 6 to 50. Rosie overcomes a lot of obstacles in life and she is a truly inspirational woman. Her relationship with Alex is also one of a kind.

Casting & Characters

Before reading the book, I knew who was cast to play these roles, so all the time I was imagining Lilly Collins as Rosie and Sam Claflin as Alex. I love both of these actors. Lily captivated me in The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones movie (Yes, that movie wasn’t perfect but the casting choices were amazing and to the point and I adored the books by Cassandra Clare long before I saw the movie). Sam Claflin is my celebrity crush since his role in Catching Fire and from that point forward, I have been following his career closely. (I really want to see The Riot Club but I don’t think it will be showed in my country).

Changes

From what I had seen in the trailer, I came to the conclusion that they changed the story a lot, but I still think it will be quite a nice girls’ night out kind of movie. (Even the toughest girls love a bit of romance). Also, the book took a decade to be adapted to the big screen, so it’s natural that they would change some things to make it more relatable to contemporary movie goers.

Everything above was written before seeing the movie, below is the review.

So, first of all, as it was expected, the movie covered a shorter period of time than the books. To my mind, this has been done for 2 reasons: firstly, it would be hard to age a 20+ something actor to look like a 50 year old. Even in today’s world with amazing computer effects and exceptional make up, it could possibly look weird and fake. Secondly, the movie would be extremely long if it tried to cover 40 years of story or it would have to make a huge time jumps which would make it hard to follow the story. So, to sum up, I completely agree with the decision to shorten the time period.

Another big group of changes was the supporting characters’ back stories. SPOILERS AHEAD. For example, Rosie met Ruby under completely different circumstances in the book than in the film. The story ark of Brian was given to Greg. Phil was turned into Alex’s friend not brother. They also changed the number of brothers and sisters Rosie had. Movie creators introduced the character of Herb and the whole other plotlines with him and Sally. Alex had no kids. They also turned Phil into love interest for Ruby. All of the characters were British and not Irish. I didn’t mind the changes; however, I wished one particular character from the book wasn’t left out of the movie – Mrs. Big Nose Smelly Breath Casey – Alex’s and Rosie’s teacher form school.

The main plot stayed almost the same with some part being left out. (For instance, the movie left out the plotline of Rosie working at school with her worst enemy form teenage years – teacher Mrs. Casey). This was due to the shortened period of time which I had already discussed. I wished the movie was longer and we could have spent more time with the characters. I also felt that, at times, the movie was a bit rushed because they just wanted to fit all of the big events into 90 minutes.

Acting

I really enjoyed both Lilly Collins and Sam Claflin in their roles and I definitely know what my tumblr dashboard is going to looks like for a few weeks. (If you have an obsession with Sam Claflin you are welcome here :). The chemistry between two main characters was believeable and hearth-warming.

Jaime Winstone was perfect Ruby, I wished I had a friend like her – witty, funny but always prepared to help. Christian Cooke as Greg/Brian form the book was surprisingly likeable character after he came back after 5 year hiatus. However, that changed quickly. The actor who played him seemed so familiar to me and I couldn’t remember why. Turns out he played Mercutio in last year’s Romeo and Juliet alongside Douglas Booth and Hailee Steinfeld. But I still think that I remember him from somewhere else.

Suki Waterhouse did quite a nice job as Bethany and Tamsin Egerton was quite good as a complete b**ch Sallly.

Music

I really loved the soundtrack of the movie, especially the song where SPOILER Rosie punches Greg. Does someone know what song was that?

All in all, I enjoyed a movie a lot; it is definitely one of my top favorite romantic movies for sure. The actors were casted superbly; the story was interesting and entertaining even if a bit cliché and rushed at times. They also added much more funny moments and jokes into the film than there were in the books and these laugh out loud moments really made the movie seem lighter than it could have been. After all, it is the story of a young woman and huge obstacles in her life. To sum up, I recommend this movie for all the hopeless romantics out there and I only wish it could have been longer.

Rate 4.5/5

Trailer: Love, Rosie trailer

Photos: Google Images