Watched: April 5, 2015 on Netflix

Hashtag: #WatchingIHateVDay

Year Released: 2009

Genre: Romantic Comedy

Starring: Nia Vardalos, John Corbett

Run Time: 98 minutes

Description (from IMDb): A florist, who abides by a strict five-date-limit with any man, finds herself wanting more with the new restaurateur in town.

 

 

 

Nia Vardalos is probably best known for her smash hit My Big Fat Greek Wedding, which is the highest grossing romantic comedy of all time.  I saw it in theaters back in 2002, own it on DVD and watch it whenever it comes on tv.  I Hate Valentine’s Day is another sweet, quirky, semi-unconventional rom-com and I have to say, Vardalos knocked it out of the park again.  While this movie certainly didn’t share the success of MBFGW, in fact I’ll bet most of the people following my A to Z challenge haven’t heard of it, it was just lovely.  I found myself laughing over and over.

There were problems with the premise – Vardalos’s character Genevieve loves romance so much that she believes you should get out of a “relationship” as soon as the romance is gone and she believes the way to do that is to end everything after 5 dates.  The reason for her closed-off-ness is her father, who cheated on her mother when she was a kid and so now she doesn’t trust men not to hurt her.  I think the backstory was probably necessary here, but I’d really like to see a story where the woman doesn’t want a traditional relationship and it’s not because she’s got trust issues due to being hurt by another man.  Just once.

Other than that, though, the movie was charming.  Even though Vardalos cast John Corbett as her male lead again (he played her love interest in MBFGW as well), neither of their characters felt redundant.  Their chemistry felt new.  I’m definitely going to be adding this movie to my Valentine’s Day single girl’s marathon.

Also, just a quick note – the supporting cast in this movie was such a breath of fresh air.  Every time the scene changed there was a new familiar face on the screen: 30 Rock‘s Judah Friedlander, SNL (& 30 Rock)’s Rachel Dratch, What If‘s Zoe Kazan, Dumb & Dumber‘s Mike Starr, Parks and Rec‘s Ben Schwartz (Jean Ralphio! he was uncredited in this movie).

 

Nia is starting out beautiful, so sadly, I don’t see a makeover montage in our future #WatchingIHateVDay

— Rachel L. Hamm (@RLHammAuthor) April 5, 2015

The straight woman and 2 gay dudes can’t keep it in their pants when a cute guy walks into the shop #WatchingIHateVDay

— Rachel L. Hamm (@RLHammAuthor) April 5, 2015

This trainwreck of a girl just blew her nose with a snack cake wrapper. I love her #WatchingIHateVDay

— Rachel L. Hamm (@RLHammAuthor) April 5, 2015

She’s going for the hard stuff- a meatball sandwich #WatchingIHateVDay

— Rachel L. Hamm (@RLHammAuthor) April 5, 2015

What do guys like besides pizza and morning sex? Seriously, we need the answer to this #WatchingIHateVDay

— Rachel L. Hamm (@RLHammAuthor) April 5, 2015

 

For more of my thoughts on I Hate Valentine’s Day, follow me on twitter @RLHammAuthor and search for #WatchingIHateVDay