Valentine's Day

This sprawling film, set in Los Angeles, has a huge cast of characters that are all in some form or fashion connected to someone else in this film, either by family bonds, or friends/acquantances or business contacts.  It's almost too unwieldy, but I still ended up caring for about 1/2 of the storylines, and most were easy to follow along with throughout the somewhat overly long-winded film. 

Obviously, the film is about finding love, and expressing it, and taking the good with the bad with relationships, and to celebrate it on that one day of the year, even in spite of the commerical excess that the day entails.  That being said, Taylor Swift's bit parts were memorable, but in a bad way.  Jessica Biel almost pulls off some comedic bits, but she's not quite at home with such material.  Jennifer Garner's character has some strange ability to stretch the day into 30+ hours, it would seem, as she just appearing all over the place throughout the day.  Ashton Kutcher actually played a sympathetic guy without much of a prank-ish spark.  I'd be here all day if I commented on all the different connections, it was that much of a hodge-podge of a film.

Overall, it was simply okay, it will tug at your heart strings, it will get you to sniffle here and there about resolutions and dissolutions on this supposedly most romantic day of the year, but in the end, it's a tepid mess in spots, and overly drawn out in other areas, and it has Garry Marshall's gentle directorial hand all through its running time.

I give it 2.5 stars, or a grade of C+.