The aforementioned car accident puts Paige (McAdams) in a coma and when she awakens she is suffering from severe memory loss and doesn’t remember the last five years of her life, which unfortunately includes her life with her husband Leo (Tatum), who tries desperately to help her remember their marriage and struggles to win her heart again. In the opening scenes, I quickly fell in love with Paige and Leo and admired their loving relationship. Yes, there were clichéd, cheesy moments of how boy meets girl and how boy gets girl to go out with him but I couldn’t help but smile when Leo brought Paige a get well box full of medicine (and lingerie) or laugh when they played chocolate roulette. I was definitely behind both Paige and Leo at their wedding at the Art Institute of Chicago, as they declared their vows (which were written on menus) and were subsequently chased out by museum security. And my love for them didn’t waver when Paige woke up not recognizing Leo since I just knew she would eventually get her memory back and they would be happy again…the end! Well, that didn’t quite happen.
Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum in “The Vow.” © 2011 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. All rights reserved.
Leo struggles to earn Paige’s heart while I simultaneously struggled to like the person Paige has become and the life she has returned to. Paige embraces her old life before Leo, and reverts from a bohemian, down to earth chick to a prissy, J. Crew wearing snob. It was awkward seeing Paige and Leo interact while they are dealing with this trauma. Leo is doing all he can as he fights for his marriage, but nothing is working as Paige moves out to live with her estranged family and hangs out with her old friends and her ex fiancé, Jeremy (Scott Speedman). This side of Paige is unappealing as she enters a world from middle class to upper class with an overbearing father (Sam Neill) and her uppity mother (Jessica Lange) who do their best to exclude Leo from Paige’s “new” life. This is where I began to root more for Leo, as Paige disregards the effort Leo is putting in to save their marriage and her memory while she barely seems to put in an effort herself. There is a slight moment of hope for them when Leo reenacts their first “first date” and the couple I fell in love with rekindles their spark, but that spark is crushed after Leo assaults Jeremy at a wedding. Paige then declares that it’s not working between them and a reluctant Leo is forced to sign their divorce papers. The two go on to live their separate lives, as Leo adjusts to a life without his wife and Paige deals with an identity crisis and a family secret that has her reverting to her somewhat old self but still no Leo until the very end.
The plot of The Vow is a common theme that has been seen in several movies before (some parts of the movie made me think of 50 First Dates) and I enjoyed the various shots of the city of Chicago, but it was the chemistry between McAdams and Tatum that made the movie endearing. Their chemistry is nowhere like the chemistry that McAdams and Ryan Gosling shared in The Notebook, but it was believable and heartfelt. The ending will have you thinking what would you do if the love of your life forgot who you were and to what lengths you would go to help them remember?
