Henry Barnes 

The Vow – review

Channing Tatum is terribly miscast as an arty husband who tries to help his amnesiac wife remember their blissful time together, writes Henry Barnes
  
  

Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams in The Vow.
Calculable ... Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams in The Vow. Photograph: Kerry Hayes Photograph: Kerry Hayes/PR

Paige (Rachel McAdams) wakes from a coma to find every trace of her pre-accident life – the row with her parents, the abandoned law degree, the new life as a free-sprited sculptor – wiped from her memory. Jumbled up in the load is Leo (Channing Tatum), her handsome, arty (he wears a hat) husband. His fight to help her remember their blissful time together will see him slump sobbing to the floor, punch the ex at a wedding and deliver an earnest voiceover on love ("physical, mental and every other kind"). It's not all so calculable. Brave is the weepie that flirts with the concept of love dying before people. The bad guys are archetypes – Sam Neill is manipulative dad, Scott Speedman jilted ex – but they're not one-note evil. McAdams gives Paige a bit more attack than you'd expect from the second fiddle, and while Tatum is terribly miscast, there's just enough heart in the beefcake to carry it.

 

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