{"id":49837,"date":"2022-02-11T16:53:08","date_gmt":"2022-02-11T16:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/?post_type=articles&p=49837"},"modified":"2022-02-11T17:16:30","modified_gmt":"2022-02-11T17:16:30","slug":"valentines-day-movie-recap","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/us\/articles\/valentines-day-movie-recap\/","title":{"rendered":"I Watched \u2018Valentine\u2019s Day\u2019 So No One Else Has To Ever Again"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Anne
Anne Hathaway, Patrick Dempsey, Julia Roberts, George Lopez, Jessica Alba, Jamie Foxx, Taylor Swift, Taylor Lautner, Jessica Biels, Ashton Kutcher, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Garner, Topher Grace, Queen Latifa and Emma Roberts in Valentine’s Day<\/i> (Image courtesy of Warner Bros.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Valentine\u2019s Day is coming up. Perhaps you noticed the heart shaped boxes of chocolate<\/a> appearing on shelves late last year. Turns out, not even supply chain issues could stop the shops from heralding, in mid-December, the inevitable coming of Cupid. But I don\u2019t want to talk about that<\/em> Valentine\u2019s Day<\/a>. No, I would much rather discuss Valentine\u2019s Day<\/em>, Garry Marshall\u2019s 2010 ensemble romantic comedy<\/a>. Because I know that some of you out there\u2014whether you\u2019re single and looking for something appropriately seasonal to watch alone with a bottle of wine, or coupled up and looking for an at-home date night type movie\u2014are going to consider watching this two-hour logjam of early 2000s celebrities on or leading up to February 14.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t do it. It\u2019s not worth it! Take it from me, I know, because I did<\/em> watch Valentine\u2019s Day<\/em>, and lived to tell about it.<\/p>\n

Valentine\u2019s Day<\/em> is ostensibly a riff on the Love, Actually <\/em>formula: a lot of interconnected love stories that take place around a holiday. But while Love, Actually<\/em>\u2019s treacly smarm was cut with a bit of cozy Britishness, Valentine\u2019s Day<\/em> is a full-on high gloss, filler-injected Hollywood product<\/em>. It literally takes place in Los Angeles and stars\u2014deep breath\u2014Ashton Kutcher, Jennifer Garner<\/a>, Bradley Cooper, Anne Hathaway<\/a>, Taylors Swift<\/a> and Lautner, Jamie Foxx<\/a>, Jessicas Alba<\/a> and Biel<\/a>, Queen Latifa, Patrick Dempsey, Eric Dane<\/a>, George Lopez, Kathy Bates, Emma Roberts<\/a>, Topher Grace, Shirley MacLaine, H\u00e9ctor Elizondo and Julia Roberts<\/a>. I think that\u2019s everyone.<\/p>\n

We open with some radio DJ telling us it\u2019s Valentine\u2019s Day, a holiday that is apparently extremely popular and meaningful<\/em> to a lot of people, particularly in Los Angeles<\/a> for some reason. I mean, this concept is extremely foreign to me, but I guess it rings true? Like, I accept that Valentine\u2019s Day is thing<\/em> in the same way that I accept that Des Moines is a real place even though I\u2019ve never been there.<\/p>\n

\"Jessica
Jessica Alba and Ashton Kutcher in Valentine’s Day<\/i> (Photo: Warner Bros.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Anyway, it\u2019s bright and early on Valentine\u2019s Day morn, and Ashton Kutcher<\/a> wakes up next to his girlfriend Jessica Alba<\/a> and proposes. (A note: I will be referring to these \u201ccharacters\u201d by the names of the celebrities who play them as it is unreasonable for either me or the reader to keep track of who anyone is otherwise.) Ashton Kutcher thinks <\/em>she says \u201cYes,\u201d but actually she doesn\u2019t. She actually just says, \u201cReally?\u201d and kisses him, still clutching her Blackberry, which she sleeps holding, which should tell us right away that there is something unnaturally un<\/em>romantic about her. But, spoiler alert, Valentine\u2019s Day <\/em>is at least progressive enough not to punish<\/em> Jessica Alba for this fundamentally inhuman character flaw, so that\u2019s something.<\/p>\n

Ashton Kutcher, however, is very romantic, because he is a florist. And his flower shop is apparently the nexus of all Valentine\u2019s Day drama. For instance, he has this friend named Jennifer Garner who is sleeping with a very McDreamy man named Dr. Patrick Dempsey. She thinks she\u2019s in love with him, but what she doesn\u2019t know is that he\u2019s married, which Ashton Kutcher learns when Dr. Patrick Dempsey comes in to buy flowers for both<\/em> his wife and Jennifer Garner.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, Anne Hathaway<\/a> and Topher Grace have just started sleeping together. They work in the same office where he is a na\u00efve Midwestern transplant in the mailroom and she is a temp assistant, who also moonlights as a phone sex operator. She\u2019s trying to keep that a secret from both her boss, Queen Latifa, and from Topher Grace, who, upon discovering it is Valentine\u2019s Day, is trying to arrange an appropriately romantic date.<\/p>\n

\"Queen
Queen Latifa and Anne Hathaway in Valentine’s Day<\/i> (Photo: Warner Bros.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Queen Latifa is a sports agent whose main client is Eric Dane, a football player who has a big secret that he\u2019s about to reveal. It\u2019s that he\u2019s gay. That\u2019s the secret, which he announces at a press conference. And that\u2019s pretty much all there is to Eric Dane\u2019s storyline\u2014although we do get to see him shirtless a bit, which is nice.<\/p>\n

Eric Dane also has a publicist named Jessica Biel, who is experiencing some kind of totally proportional emotional crisis re: Valentine\u2019s Day. Somehow, sports reporter Jamie Foxx finds this charming. See, his boss Kathy Bates assigned him to do a fluff piece interviewing random people on the street about V Day, but he\u2019s ignoring that because why would you, a man, feel any kind of imperative to do what your female boss tells you to? Instead, he\u2019s chasing down the Eric Dane thing, which is how he and Jessica Biel end up falling in love. Also, she throws an annual I Hate Valentine\u2019s Day party, to which no one has RSVPed, which is a plotline totally lifted from the far superior ensemble New Year\u2019s Eve movie 200 Cigarettes<\/em>. I would suggest watching that<\/em> instead, but you can\u2019t because it\u2019s not streaming anywhere<\/em> and even the DVD is out of print. And yet, Valentine\u2019s Day<\/em> is on HBO Max for all the world to see. We live in a society!<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Ashton
Ashton Kutcher and a child actor in Valentine’s Day<\/i> (Photo: Warner Bros.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Another storyline totally cribbed from another movie\u2014this time Love, Actually<\/em>\u2014is that of wee sorrowful towheaded moppet Edison. His parents are absent for unexplained reasons, so he\u2019s living with his grandparents Shirley MacLaine and H\u00e9ctor Elizondo. But, actually, he\u2019s not so sorrowful because of his possibly dead parents. He\u2019s actually in love<\/em> with someone at school and manages to con Ashton Kutcher into cutting him a deal on some flowers to impress his beloved, who turns out to be Jennifer Garner, his teacher.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, little Edison\u2019s high school babysitter Emma Roberts is thinking about having sex with her boyfriend for the first time. But that goes off the rails when the boyfriend gets caught naked in her bedroom by her mom during their lunch period. Emma Roberts talks to Shirley MacLaine and H\u00e9ctor Elizondo about this, and it comes out that Shirley MacLaine cheated on H\u00e9ctor Elizondo a million years ago. Could this mean the end of their marriage?<\/p>\n

\"Taylor
Taylor Swift in Valentine’s Day<\/i> (Photo: Warner Bros.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Also, Taylor Swift<\/a> and Taylor Lautner\u2014who were maybe dating when this was filmed?\u2014also go to Emma Roberts\u2019s high school. But they don\u2019t really have a storyline, which is lucky, because this was about the point when I thought if any more characters were introduced, I would start weeping.<\/p>\n

Oh, god, and I forgot about Bradley Cooper<\/a> and Julia Roberts, who have been sitting next to each other on an airplane this whole time seeming like they might be flirting and falling in love. Except they\u2019re not, because twist! <\/em>He\u2019s gay and dating Eric Dane and she\u2019s Edison\u2019s mom. So, that\u2019s them out of the way.<\/p>\n

\"Bradley
Bradley Cooper and Julia Roberts in Valentine’s Day<\/i> (Photo: Warner Bros.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ok, so: Jessica Alba shows up at Ashton Kutcher\u2019s shop and dumps him. Then he tells Jennifer Garner that Dr. Patrick Dempsey is married, but she thinks he\u2019s just emotionally manipulating her because he got dumped and she\u2019s his emergency back-up girl. But now she\u2019s suspicious, and so she goes to the hospital where Dr. Patrick Dempsey works and finds out where he and his wife are having dinner. She somehow manages, through her public school teacher connections, to convince the restaurant to let her pose as DPD\u2019s waitress so that she can deliver a vivid monologue about dismembering a pig to him and his wife.<\/p>\n

On their Valentine\u2019s Date, Topher Grace finds out that Anne Hathaway does phone sex and gets all judgy about it because he\u2019s from the Midwest. So, he goes to a movie in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery where he finds H\u00e9ctor Elizondo moping. They commiserate, and then Shirley MacLaine appears wearing this very loud and red and sparkly shawl. She and H\u00e9ctor Elizondo make up, which convinces Topher Grace to get over his boring provincial morality and go get Anne Hathaway.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Jessica Biel is hosting her I Hate Valentine\u2019s Day party at an Indian Restaurant. Jamie Foxx shows up and plays the piano and woos JB a little more, and then everyone has a Bollywood flash mob for no reason and the party is suddenly a huge success!<\/p>\n

\"Jessica
Jessica Biel and Jamie Foxx in Valentine’s Day<\/i> (Photo: Warner Bros.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Later, Jessica Biel goes to the TV station where Jamie Foxx is doing his gross, kinda homophobic report on Eric Dane, and when that horror show is done, they kiss and are in love now. Jessica Biel and Jamie Foxx, not Jamie Foxx and Eric Dane, obviously.<\/p>\n

So, while all that is going on, Ashton Kutcher is talking about love and heartbreak and whatnot with his delivery guy George Lopez\u2014he\u2019s in this too! And now that all his Valentine\u2019s Day deliveries are done, he\u2019s on a bridge somewhere throwing leftover roses in the water, when who should show up but Jennifer Garner! See, she had to turn down baby Edison\u2019s marriage proposal or whatever and this made her realize that, actually, she loves Ashton Kutcher. So, here they are on a bridge, and they kiss and Valentine\u2019s Day is over.<\/p>\n

\"Jennifer
Jennifer Garner and Ashton Kutcher in Valentine’s Day<\/i> (Photo: Warner Bros.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

See what I mean? This movie is a mess! Like, if you thought this recap was confusing, I guarantee that watching the actual movie is only slightly less dizzyingly chaotic! But, after all that, if you still feel like you need to see Valentine\u2019s Day<\/em>\u2026honestly, I\u2019m not sure what to say. I\u2019ve done my best to prepare you for what you\u2019re getting yourself into. Go with god, my sweet cherubim! And a happy St. Valentine\u2019s Day to us all!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29097,"featured_media":49838,"template":"","format":"standard","categories":[38,3324,16],"yoast_head":"\nI Watched \u2018Valentine\u2019s Day\u2019 So No One Else Has To Ever Again<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"\u2018Valentine\u2019s Day\u2019 is ostensibly a riff on the \u2018Love, Actually\u2019 formula: a lot of interconnected love stories that take place around a holiday. 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