Stuck in Love

Rated:

Rated R for language, treat teen drug and alcohol use, and some sexual content

Directed By:

Josh Boone

Cast:

Lily Collins, Logan Lerman, Nat Wolff, Jennifer Connelly, Greg Kinnear, Kristen Bell, Liana Liberato

Find the rest on IMDB here.

IMDB Movie Synopsis:

An acclaimed writer, his ex-wife, and their teenaged children come to terms with the complexities of love in all its forms over the course of one tumultuous year.

Okay, I thought that was possibly the lamest synopsis ever so here is mine: William Borgens (Kinnear) is a published author and he’s always taught his children to love books and to love writing. Three years ago, his wife (Connelly) cheated on him and left him for another man, and yet he still holds on to her. His children, Samantha (Collins) and Rusty (Wolff) are both effected by this, of course, in vastly different ways. Rusty is a hopeless romantic, pining after a troubled girl, Katy (Liberato), while Samantha is cynical and doesn’t believe in love, and pushes away the advances of Louis (Lerman). The story is a course of a year as all three of them experience the different stages of love and how they change in that year.

My Review:

First off, can I just comment on the fact that this movie was like my YA hero dream? You have Lily Collins who plays Clary in The Mortal Instruments, Logan Lerman who plays Percy in Percy Jackson and now Nat Wolff who plays Isaac in the upcoming The Fault in Our Stars movie. So that was enough to make me want to watch it. Then all these people online started watching it out of nowhere, and I thought, okay, I have to get on board with this.

And I absolutely LOVED this movie. It was such a beautiful movie and a great story. There is realism in every part of the story. The dad holding on to the cheating ex-wife and unable to move on, the cynical daughter unable to accept the ideas of love and a son who wants nothing more than to find that love. Watching those stories unfold, watching them all go through hurt and heartbreak and love and all of that, was just a beautiful thing to watch.

The thing about the characters is that Josh Boone doesn’t hold back on the intelligence of all of them. Every single one of them is extremely intelligent in their own way and I think that’s why makes watching them make the wrong decisions or take the wrong turns so addicting, and so compelling. I think every actor and actress here has a lot of heart and does an amazing job capturing their characters.

I think Logan Lerman brings around the kind of performance that he has in Perks of Being a Wallflower and I think that he can really stand out in these kind of roles. Lily Collins really shines, and I’m not just saying that because she’s absolutely beautiful and I have a crush on her. I adored her as Clary Fray, and I don’t think anyone else could have been Clary Fray but I think this is more of a winning role for her. She was absolutely beautiful in this movie, and I think she stood out big time.I think she is really the highlight of this movie.  This is the first time I’ve ever seen Nat Wolff in anything besides pictures that John Green puts up of the TFiOS set, and he really captured my attention and my affection in this movie. He plays the awkward, sincere and lovable Rusty so well and I can’t imagine that he won’t be able to capture Isaac as well.

I love the adults as well, don’t get all cranky at me. I think the adults were an important part of the movie, especially Kinnear and Connelly as the parents. They were there, they had their own story to figure out but their story was so reflective on the stories that we got between Samantha and Louis and Rusty and Katy. I think that was the important part.

The music? Beautiful. There was just this indie sort of feel to it, combined with some songs that were recognizable. The music just seemed to fit so well with the movie and the story.

Loved the Stephen King cameo. I’m just saying.

I also just…I felt a real connection to how everything was just so wrapped in books and writing. William is a writer and he has inspired his children with books and writing. Samantha is about to become a published author (I had a mini fangirl attack at the thought of Lily Collins being an aspiring novelist), and Rusty is obsessed with Stephen King and with writing stories. Louis is a writer. The love that connects them all through stories and books was something that I couldn’t help but feel connected to. As a lover of books and of words and of writing on paper, I couldn’t help but understand how a book and a story could bring people together, whether it was a family or two people in love.

The only reason the movie doesn’t get 5 out of 5 is the predictability. It is a very predictable movie. It was beautiful and enjoyable to those with a hopeless romantic heart, who love to see pretty bows at the end of a movie about love (not in books though. I’m seriously sadistic when it comes to books…) but I love seeing romance. But you can almost predict what is going to happen in the end, and that might deter some people from liking it. But for me, it is still a wonderful story, and one that you enjoy even if you can already guess the ending.

Rating:

4 out of 5

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