The Vow
for an accident scene, sexual content, partial nudity and some language.
Reviewed by: Thaisha Geiger
CONTRIBUTOR
| Moral Rating: | Offensive |
| Moviemaking Quality: |
|
| Primary Audience: | Adults Teens |
| Genre: | Romance Drama |
| Length: | 1 hr. 44 min. |
| Year of Release: | 2012 |
| USA Release: |
February 10, 2012 (wide—2,800+ theaters) DVD: May 8, 2012 |
husband winning heart of his wife again and rebuilding their marriage
TRUE LOVE—What is true love and how do you know when you have found it? Answer
newlywed couple
lives changed by a car accident
wife in a coma
severe memory loss
ex-fiancé
mother daughter relationship
father daughter relationship
| Featuring |
Rachel McAdams … Paige Channing Tatum … Leo Jessica Lange … Rita Thornton Sam Neill … Bill Thornton See all » |
| Director |
Michael Sucsy |
| Producer |
Screen Gems Spyglass Entertainment See all » |
| Distributor |
Memories define us. Our entire personality and lives are stored within our minds. Every moment, every encounter has helped either build up or tear down relationships. And, after marriage, spouses are required to keep and honor their vows. What if a brain injury left your loved one with no memory of you? It’s a difficult question, and an impossible one to ponder.
Paige (Rachel McAdams) and her husband (Channing Tatum) are happily married. While at a stop sign, Paige unbuckles her seatbelt and flirts with her husband. Within moments, a truck rear ends their small car, causing Paige to smash through the windshield. Suffering a traumatic brain injury, Paige is placed in an induced coma.
Leo escapes with minor injury and waits for his wife to wake up. Upon waking, however, Paige has no recollection of him or their marriage. She isn’t even the same person. She still believes she’s in law school and on good terms with her parents. Still deeply in love with his wife, Leo is determined to make Paige fall back in love with him, even though his wife is a former version of herself.
Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum are sweet together. Upon first hearing the casting of the film, I hadn’t been too sure of the pairing, but they have believable chemistry. The film does have its charm and laughs. However, I do feel it could have been so much more. Some inconvenient characters are thrown in the mix, distracting from the main story of Paige and Leo. It felt as if not enough time was spent on Paige and Leo rebuilding their relationship.
***SPOILER*** The movie doesn’t live up to its name. Potential viewers might be led to believe that Leo and Paige, while still married, reconnect and fall in love all over again. They only go on one date and eventually get divorced. Paige finds herself by gaining her independence and by going back to school and living on her own. Once she’s built a new life for herself, she then seeks out Leo six months later. Though the film was only inspired by the true story of Kim and Krickitt Carpenter, the writers should have stuck more closely to their true account. They never divorced, and while steadfastly enduring the aftereffects of the brain injury, they fall back in love.
***END SPOILER***
In all, there are at least 12 uses of foul language: 7 sh_t, 3 hells, 1 GD, 1 d_mnit. There is also some mild vulgarity with at least one use of d_ck and c_ckblock. During a car ride, Paige flirts with Leo and says that she heard one could get “preggers” if one does it in a car. When first meeting, Leo tells Paige that they have the same parking zone in college, she responds that it sounds intimate. Before they’re married, he gives her a negligee with a note that states “For Later”. She smiles at him, takes it out of the box, and puts it against herself. Though Leo does ask Paige to move in, they’re quickly married in subsequent scenes.
There are no sex scenes in the movie. In one flashback scene, the married couple are on the floor, kissing. Paige is then shown pulling up Leo’s shirt. Afterwards, they lie in bed, Paige’s entire bare back is shown and the sheets are pulled up, showing a lot of their legs. In two scenes, Paige is in her bra and panties. From habit, her husband walks around nude, his derriere is briefly shown. After they walk in on each other, he smiles and says that it’s not as if she hasn’t seen it before. Leo and Paige’s former fiancée exchange a bitter exchange about winning over Paige; she does briefly kiss her former flame.
I cautiously recommend this movie only for adults. I took the hubby with me to see it, and we had an intriguing discussion about it afterwards. We had the what-if conversation of how and what we would explain to each other if one suffered amnesia. It was a nice reminder of all of our years together. Though the movie wasn’t as heartwarming as “Fireproof”, it does somewhat provide a positive portrayal of marriage, so it’s better than a lot of movies out there.
Violence: Mild / Profanity: Moderate / Sex/Nudity: Moderate
See list of Relevant Issues—questions-and-answers.
Moral rating: Better than Average / Moviemaking quality: 4
Moral rating: Better than Average / Moviemaking quality: 4
Moral rating: Average / Moviemaking quality: 3
The filming quality of the movie was good, but could rather not seen it. We were sad the rest of the night from how hard it was to watch that movie. Especially when she forgets him as her husband and thinks she is in love with her ex fiancé.
Moral rating: Offensive / Moviemaking quality: 3
Moral rating: Better than Average / Moviemaking quality: 2½
It did eventually get better. There was one point were infidelity by another couple is discovered. ***SPOILER*** I was pleased that the woman said she stayed because she chose to dwell on all the rights the husband had done rather than the one wrong. Finally, we are shown that marriages can endure. ***END SPOILER*** Personally, someone else here read the book and that sounds better than the movie. I found it dull and not all that romantic. But kudos to the couple for staying together for better or worse.
Moral rating: Average / Moviemaking quality: 3
On the contrary, the book was amazing. I could not put it down. The book was filled with strong Christian values and morals. The couple the movie is based on is obviously a strong Christian couple devoted to their relationship with Christ. I was very disappointed that the movie was very different from the book. I found that most things in the movie did not portray the true story that it was supposedly inspired by. I wish this movie had actually portrayed the true story of this couple, as their true story is inspiring and amazing!!
Moral rating: Average / Moviemaking quality: none
Moral rating: Offensive / Moviemaking quality: 5
It was very depressing, and, instead of being uplifted, I left depressed at the thought that Hollywood was glamorizing a marriage in turmoil, more than one repairing itself. The movie could have been so much better than it was. I thought the acting quality was very good. The script could have been better.
Moral rating: Very Offensive / Moviemaking quality: 3
I’m quite surprised that the couple did not exercise more creative control over the content. I would dearly have like to watch the entire movie, but sadly, I just couldn’t watch any longer. (We stopped watching in about the middle of the scene where they are going into the lake.)
Moral rating: Very Offensive / Moviemaking quality: 3½
And the number of times they engineered opportunities for Channing (Leo) to go shirtless was truly annoying. All the other characters that filled in the story were weak stereotypes, with cliché circumstances that surrounded them. Then, of course, there’s that little issue of the movie’s title not living up to the story… In all, I think they took a story that had some promise and turned it into a paint-by-numbers movie to attain commercial success which they seemed to have achieved on a financial level.
Moral rating: Offensive / Moviemaking quality: 2
There were a few scenes where they started to undress, but, thankfully, it didn’t show anything. There was another scene where Leo is walking around nude (it shows his butt). He does it out of habit, but Paige freaks out. There wasn’t as much swearing as there usually is in movies, but there were a few. I was glad that there weren’t many misuses of God’s name, because that is the main swear that I hate.
Overall, it was a great story about love and the importance of wedding vows, and how special they are. Leo loved Paige so much that he was going to stand by her no matter what happened. He said in his vows that he would, and he did. It was a very sweet story and a great movie.
Moral rating: Average / Moviemaking quality: 4
I think that “The Vow” is an excellent date night movie and is fine to be watched by adults and teens.
Moral rating: Average / Moviemaking quality: 4½
Moral rating: Average / Moviemaking quality: 3
Also, it showed another couple who were happily married, and also the strength of relationships between family members and friends. Also, at the end it suggests that Leo and his wife might get together again, which I thought was very good. The film also raises important moral issues which non-Christians and Christians alike can discuss. Overall, the movie was very good.
Moral rating: Good / Moviemaking quality: 5
PLEASE share your observations and insights to be posted here.
Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn’t, be effective in the lives of viewers, but wow… secular movies just don’t give us this in our world. So, though there were still some worldly issues in the movie we may not agree with, the love story, the devotion, the ability to let something you love so much go, the ability to forgive, all spoke such loud truths of God’s love, that I felt my prayers were being answered and Christians were behind the scenes making a difference. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but what if this is the beginning of what God is doing behind the scenes. See all »
My Ratings: Moral rating: Better than Average / Moviemaking quality: 5