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Movie review: 'The Vow'

“The Vow” displays all the traits of a manufactured melodrama stuffed into a heart-shaped box for Valentine's Day, and yet it modestly succeeds thanks to Rachel McAdams, who works hard enough for both herself and co-star Channing Tatum to make this story about memory loss a lot less forgettable.

When Paige and Leo are introduced, the couple played by McAdams and Tatum are blissfully in love, a sculptor and a record producer married for four years and living in a rustic Chicago loft. All is wonderful until a freak winter accident puts Paige in a coma, and when she awakens, she is unable to remember the last five years of her life. Paige only remembers who she was long before Leo, a daddy's girl attending law school and engaged to rakish corporate attorney Jeremy (Scott Speedman).

Now a stranger to the woman he loves, Leo must try to reintroduce himself to Paige and make her fall in love with him again, but several obstacles stand in his way. For one, Paige seems perfectly happy living her past life, and her manipulative parents (Sam Neill and Jessica Lange), who were estranged from Paige before the accident, are more than ready to exploit their daughter's condition. Furthermore, Jeremy is ready to jump back into the picture, and everything pivots on just how much Paige can, or is willing to, remember.

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