THE VOW: NEVER FORGET...

There are sappy romance films galore being released to theaters these days that have the most unbelievable stories behind them. So the biggest surprise this week is a romance that is unbelievable and yet based on reality. Not only that but the movie is touching, romantic and draws you in. That movie is THE VOW.

Channing Tatum and Rachael McAdams play Leo and Paige, a young couple deeply in love on their way home from a night out in winter. Stopped at a stop sign, their car is rear ended by a sliding snow plow, sending Paige through the window to suffer severe brain damage. Kept in a coma to decrease the severity of her injury when she wakes she has no recollection of the accident but worse still no idea who Leo is. It's as if the last 5 years of her life have disappeared.

Hoping that time heals all wounds, Leo stays with her even though she recoils from him, a complete stranger in her mind. Her parents (Sam Neill and Jessica Lange) show and try to encourage her to leave the hospital and go with them. Leo convinces her that the best hope she has of recovering her memory is to return to the life they had. She agrees for now with the idea that should things not work out she'll return to her parent's home.

Its slow going as the couple Leo tries to convince the woman he desperately loves that she loves him in return. The Paige from before she and Leo met is a completely different person from who he thought he knew. For some reason she left her home and friends to come to the city, but we never know why. The couple goes back and forth, trying to bring back their life together but eventually Paige's parents convince her to come home.

Helping her sister plan her wedding and still trying to find herself, Paige meets up with her ex-fiancé (Scott Speedman). Her parents try to convince her that she still wants to go to law school even though she was an artist while with Leo. An old friend is shunned but others are brought back into the fold. And as Leo watches, hoping against all odds to reunite with this woman, she slowly begins to distance herself from him for her old self.

This romance involves not two young lovers meeting for the first time but two lovers who met and fell in love only to lose all memory of that. The only hope is for them to once more come together replacing those old memories with new ones. And the suspense of the film lies in that idea, of whether or not they can come together once more of will Paige slide back into the past that is all she remembers now. And what about that terrible secret that no one seems to want to talk about that forced her out so long ago?

The movie is supposed to be based on an actual couple that went through this trauma and after watching the film many will want to make a point of reading the book based on their life to find out just what is and isn't a part of their story. In the meantime this movie offers a completely entertaining night that won't bore you and actually won't make you break down and cry either, no matter how it sounds. This is a movie where you won't find yourself checking the clock to see just how much is left. It moves along at a steady pace and draws you into the story in steps.

The acting is amazing. Never once did I find myself wondering if I was watching actors or real people and that says something. The gift of a true actor is to make you believe they are the people they are portraying. McAdams and Tatum both do that to great effect here.  With the roles he chose early on many would have thought Tatum was nothing more than a muscle bound action star but he displays a depth of emotion here that is necessary for this story to be taken seriously. McAdams shows the frustration and fear in the character of Paige that makes her part of the story come alive as well.

Toss aside trying to place this film in the category of chick flick. It's a truly entertaining film from start to finish that will leave you waiting to find out if they get back together or not. This is a movie not only worth renting but worth adding to your collection as well.

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