Love, Rosie is the first English language film by German director Christian Ditter. It’s about a couple who have been friends since they were five and are clearly meant to be together but somehow never quite get it together.
Rosie (Lily Collins) and Alex (Sam Claflin) are the couple and they are, at first, inseparable – until the night of her eighteenth birthday when she overindulges and has to get her stomach pumped. Somehow, this leads to the two of them going to the prom with different people and begins a journey of ships not so much passing in the dark as scraping past icebergs and getting lost in squalls.
Alex takes Bethany (Suki Waterhouse) to the dance; Rosie goes with Greg (Christian Cooke). Alex and Bethany become a thing; Rosie suffers a double embarrassment, only one of which is getting pregnant. Alex goes off to Harvard; Rosie stays home (having not told Alex she’s pregnant).
Each gets married with predictable results; each continues to confide (in most things, at least) in the other. The one area where Rosie seems genuinely blessed is in her family – her parents (Lorcan Cranitch, Ger Ryan) are amazing, and she really takes to parenting her daughter, Katie.
After about ninety-eight minutes of near misses; misunderstandings and strange coincidences, the two finally seem to be on the same page (not a spoiler – this is the way these things go).
What keeps Love, Rosie from being just another rom-com where all too obvious plot contrivances keep the feature couple apart until the end is that Collins and Claflin have amazing chemistry. They are completely believable both as best of friends and a potential couple (if they would just open their eyes and follow their noses!).
Ditter directs, with a reasonably light touch, from a script by Juliette Towhidi – based on a novel by Cecilia Ahern (Samantha Who).
Claflin and Collins get some able support from Waterhouse, Cranitch, Ryan and Jamie Winstone as Ruby, a new friend Rosie makes the night she discovers she’s pregnant.
Good rom-coms are hard to come by, these days. Love, Rosie might not be When Harry Met Sally, but its heart is in the right place and the genuinely lovable leads carry it well.
Final Grade: B