Film Review: LOVE AGAIN (2023): Celine Dion Lends Some Magic to an Otherwise Formulaic Romance

Love Again Review

Love Again (2023) Film Review, a movie directed by Jim Strouse, written by Sofie Cramer, Andrea Willson and Jim Strouse and starring Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Sam Heughan, Celine Dion, Sofia Barclay, Russell Tovey, Lydia West, Steve Oram, Omid Djalili, Nick Jonas, Celia Imrie, Arinze Kene, Harry Attwell, Amanda Blake and Daniel Barry.

There are surprisingly no major Titanic references in Love Again, a formulaic and occasionally trite new romance which falters in many respects despite featuring Celine Dion in a rather charming supporting role. It may have been fun to bring in the 1997 James Cameron blockbuster to the new movie at least by mentioning it more because it would have lightened things up a bit. Instead, director Jim Strouse’s Love Again sometimes feels like a ridiculous, overwrought love story that should have had more substance in terms of character and plot development if it was going to go down the path it chooses to take. With that being said, it’s hard to dislike Priyanka Chopra Jonas who plays the lead role here and her male counterpart, Sam Heughan, is passable. It’s just that the movie is weighed down by its own lofty ambitions.

In a scenario that resembles the car accident from the beginning of Meet Joe Black, Priyanka Chopra Jonas’s character, Mira Ray, loses the love of her life in a heartbeat right after spending some quality time with him in a shop. Unlike Meet Joe Black, we don’t see Mira’s boyfriend get hit by a car but the movie implies it and employs a close up of Chopra Jonas’s face for dramatic effect. Fast forward two years as Mira, a struggling children’s book creator, can’t get on track in her life and work. She misses her deceased ex-boyfriend to death and has taken residence in her parents’ house. Mira soon leaves her parents and we don’t even get to see much of the front of her mom’s face at all as the parents wave goodbye to her which is just an example of poor film-making at work.

Mira texts the cell phone number to her ex-boyfriend messages of how she misses him and yearns for his affection. Meanwhile, a music critic for The New York Chronicle, Rob Burns (Sam Heughan) is struggling at work. He gets a new phone which has the same phone number as Mira’s ex-boyfriend had. Rob starts receiving messages about love and loss and becomes fascinated by them. He’s also trying to write up an interview with Celine Dion for his job but at his one-on-one interview, Dion gives him some advice on love instead. Not too believable, but cute nevertheless.

This film has a couple of nice supporting characters. One is Lisa Scott (Lydia West), Rob’s co-worker who Rob initially thinks is the one sending the messages to his phone. West is appealing in her role here and has charm to spare. We also get to meet Mira’s sister, Suzy (a delightful Sofia Barclay) who wants to see Mira date again and gets her a date with a guy who loves to work out (a cameo by Nick Jonas) through a dating app. That date doesn’t go so well so Mira is back to square one. Rob is out there looking for Ms. Right himself and through a convoluted series of events, the two main characters of Rob and Mira meet but Rob doesn’t tell her he tracked her down by her text messages making for a convoluted plot.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas is a bright and talented star. She spends a lot of the movie sitting around texting her deceased ex while wearing socks. That plot line felt a bit forced but at one point in the movie, you’re likely to just go with it and accept the premise for what it is. Heughan isn’t the best actor for the part but he’s got a lot of energy and makes the part feel somewhat believable even if his character lacks depth and background information. We know his age but we don’t know as much about his personal history as we could have.

Celine Dion, as herself, is magical in her scenes within the film and the movie becomes a reminder of how great a talent she is. She reminisces with characters about her ex-husband who passed away. She reiterates the fact that true love may only come once in our lives but that our hearts must learn to love again despite this reality. Dion has some clever scenes where she challenges the character of Rob and there are also sequences where she interacts with Mira. All these parts of the movie are delightful.

In the end, though, we get the formulaic story of boy lies to girl and girl finds out and you pretty much can guess where this movie is going to wind up going. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy many aspects of it but some of it is just so inane that it doesn’t work as successfully as a film as it could have. Maybe a couple of “A-list” leads could have helped audiences cope with some of the banal scenes a bit better. Still, Chopra Jonas and Heughan deserve to have future success in better projects going forward and could one day become “A-list” stars, themselves.

While Love Again is enjoyable enough to warrant a recommendation to romance fans, any other audiences will most likely be baffled by the lapses in logic found in the plot. But, if you’re going on a first date, you may find worse ways to get to know someone than discussing the themes found in Love Again after viewing it.  Love Again is nothing less than a sweet, romantic film that could bring couples together if they like to think with their hearts.

Rating: 6/10

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