Forever My Girl

As with romantic comedies, romantic dramas are about as predictable and schmaltzy. These are typically films about the trials and tribulations of a couple that, through tough times, are brought through the ringer until they realize they need each other. And all this is usually written in predictable ways with a nice tied up bow by films' end. So, Hollywood has offered us yet another one of these films appropriately titled "Forever My Girl".

This tells the story of country music super-star Liam Page (Alex Roe) who left his bride, Josie (Jessica Rothe), at the alter choosing fame and fortune instead. However, Liam never got over Josie, his one true love, nor did he ever forget his Southern roots in the small community where he was born and raised. Eight years later, when he unexpectedly returns to his hometown for the funeral of his high school best friend, Liam is suddenly faced with the consequences of all that he left behind. Because these types of films are predictable, Liam and Josie surely will get back together, it's just how and in what way this will occur.

Others to round out the cast are John Benjamin Hickey as Pastor Brian, Liam's father, Tyler Biggs as Jake, Josie's brother, Peter Cambor as Sam, Liam's manager, Abby Ryder Fortson as Billy, Josie's daughter, Gillian Vigman as Doris, Liam's publicist, Morgan Alexandria as Kiera, Lauren Gros as Laura and James Rackley as Johnny.

This was directed compassionately by Bethany Ashton Wolf ("First & Last" '97, "Don's Plum" '01, "Little Chenier" '06) plus shorts. This filmmaker was certainly able to extract the compassion, the empathy, the anger and the hurt that these characters exuded in order to make this more of a human drama. The performances were effective, however the chemistry between Liam and Josie was the talented directing this woman was able to convey to the audience. This was predictably written by Wolf as well. She writes the films she directs which gives her more creative control, but this being as predictable as it was made it a bit schmaltzy. In any other genre, this would be a tough film to get through, but considering this is within the romantic drama genre, there has to be a lot of forgiveness when it comes to the adjectives it's been given. After seeing what these two characters go through, knowing pretty much the direction this film was going, it allows the audience to be able to handle the aguish these characters were going to have to handle. Sometimes it's therapeutic to see a fluffy film where it allows us to go to that safe place so we can sit back and know that these characters are going to be alright, especially when they are characters that are redeeming.
Also the fact that Alex Roe does all the singing his character performs makes this even more palatable, and being a super-star country singer, he sings more than once.

Certainly if you like romantic dramas, this film is a shoe-in, but even if you're not, this does have heart, compassion, openness all with good singing with catchy lyrics. This is not a great film, but my impression was that this was created to entertain us at the same time giving us something to think about.

Out of 4 Stars: 3                                 Rated: PG                                      108mins.