Star Rating:

Love, Rosie

Director: Christian Ditter

Actors: Suki Waterhouse, Christian Cooke

Release Date: Saturday 30th November 2013

Genre(s): Romance

Running time: 102 minutes

Okay. So let’s get some possible confusion out of the way – this US adaptation of Cecelia Ahern’s novel Where Rainbows End was shot in Ireland but it’s set in England so when you see some recognisable buildings and streets from the Irish capital don’t go thinking Dublin. Lily Collins’ on-screen father is supposed to be Irish but he’s just not supposed to be working in The Shelbourne. Okay?

Okay. Wow. This is bad. If it was shorn of its seven (eight?) music montages to forgettable X Factor pop it would have come in under an acceptable hour, which would somewhat tolerable. Kind of. But it isn’t, it didn’t and it’s not.

Lily Collins and best buds San Clafin haven’t addressed the simmering sexual tension between them. Clafin’s handsome toff is off to Harvard to do some social-climbing and Collins stays at home when she falls pregnant to another handsome toff (Cooke). Keeping the pregnancy quiet from both, Collins goes about raising her daughter in her parents’ house while spending the next ten years dipping in and out of Clafin’s life. But because he’s either dating/engaged/in another country and she’s either pregnant/living with someone, they just can’t get the stars to align...

Okay. Where to start? The clichés. This is the movie where men think they’re good in bed despite reaching orgasm inside seven seconds and women vomit upon hearing people having sex. Oh, there’s the school bitchy model type who turns up just as the heroine is in the process of a pratfall. And then there’s the terrible dialogue, like, "Go and climb your greasy pole – just don’t cling to me when you’re empty inside." But wait. There’s more. Despite taking place over ten years Collins never ages so when her daughter (Lily Laight) reaches the age of ten things begin to look ridiculous.

Okay. So there is one saving grace and that’s the two leads. Collins and Clafin display something approaching sexual chemistry and they try to make do with the horrible lines they’ve been given, which is a job in itself. The movie isn’t atrocious when they’re together but sadly that’s not often.