Ostensibly, casting every bankable star in Hollywood in the same movie is a great idea. Who doesn’t love it when even the extras in a film turn out to be famous? The catch is that once you assemble an enormous cast of characters, you then have to develop those characters, and you have to give them all something to do. The end result is either going to be a sweeping, complex film with a running time of about four hours, or it’s going to be an overloaded piece of fluff. I’ll give you three guesses how Garry Marshall’s Valentine’s Day turned out.
Sensibly, Valentine’s Day takes place on February 14th and shows a day in the life of various residents of Los Angeles. Anne Hathaway plays an adult telephone entertainer trying to keep her job a secret from her new beau, Topher Grace. Queen Latifah plays her tough-as-nails boss, but does little more than show up. No matter how much you think her character is going to do something, she’s only there to chew scenery. Taylor Swift and Taylor Lautner are teenagers in love. Eric Dane is a gay man in the macho world of sports. Bradley Cooper and Julia Roberts are seatmates on a plane. Hector Elizondo and Shirley MacLaine have been together forever, but Shirley hasn’t told him everything. Emma Roberts is trying to plan sex with her boyfriend, but realizes that planning sucks all the romance out of love. Jessica Biel has always hated Valentine’s Day, but she finds Jamie Foxx to be a very flirty fellow. Patrick Dempsey has a wife and a best girl on the side (Jennifer Garner). Ashton Kutcher thinks he wants to marry Jessica Alba, but would do better with his best friend. And George Lopez? He’s actually happy—imagine that!
I think Kathy Bates is the only big name I missed, and she too is relegated to the role of an extra. No one character is pivotal to the story, and only the story line involving Julia Roberts truly tugged at my heartstrings (as did her wink to Pretty Woman in the outtakes). Though almost every character proves to be connected to the others in some way, the payoff is not as satisfying as Playing By Heart or even Love Actually (which ultimately left me feeling duped). What you have in Valentine’s Day is a slice of life in the truest sense of the term: there’s not a lot of conflict, not a lot of action, just a bunch of people getting through a holiday that often proves to be as disappointing as this movie.
