National Post (National Edition)
This is the kind of movie where a first kiss is accompanied by a sweeping, 720-degree camera pan.
EYE-GAZING AND TEAR-JERKING GET TIRESOME IN THIS PAIR OF SUGAR-COATED LOVE STORIES
Cast: Jacob Elordi, Tiera Skovbye, Adan Canto,
Radha Mitchell Director: Lance Hool
Duration: 1 h 40 m
Come on — even puppies have to grow up sometime.
I make this point because 2 Hearts, so overwhelmingly saccharine it plays like a mockery of a parody of a Hallmark movie, features not one, not two, but four lead characters, each with an extreme (possibly terminal?) case of puppy love. That's a litter of puppy love!
First off, Jacob Elordi (The Kissing Booth) and Tiera Skovbye (TV's Riverdale) as Chris and Sam, two very photogenic young people who meet and fall in love at university.
Chris, who also narrates this story, sets out his philosophy early on: “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. I choose to believe
the latter.”
Ugh. Rather than spell out one of the many counter-arguments to this, I'll just stare distractedly into the hazel eyes of the leads, which is clearly what director Lance Hool is hoping from viewers.
And if those four beautiful peepers aren't enough for you, there are four more in the heads of Adan Canto and Radha Mitchell, playing Jorge and Leslie. He's the scion of a Cuban rum dynasty, and she's a stewardess for Pan Am — I can call her that because they meet in the '70s, when Pan Am was still a going concern and that's what they called flight attendants back then.
2 Hearts is, we're told, based on a true story.
That, along with the title and the medical issues faced by Chris and Jorge, may alert you to the nature of the tragedy that will bring them together. But if you can't figure it out I'm not going to spoil it.
I will, however, note that there's a funeral scene in which every mourner is carrying the same new black umbrella, which I'd argue is cinematically pretty, but realistically unlikely. So now you know there's a funeral. Also, two weddings.
Anyway, Chris and Sam and (separately!) Jorge and Leslie make goo-goo eyes at one another, while the film chastely chronicles their courtships. This is the kind of movie where a first kiss is accompanied by a sweeping, 720-degree camera pan, and where sex is implied by a slow tracking shot across a floor of artfully arranged underthings, ending on the couple in bed, sheets pulled up to their chins. Or that classic fallback, the slow dissolve to the morning after. 2 Hearts may be set decades ago in part, but its mores are older still.
Full disclosure: I got a little teary-eyed in some of the later scenes in this movie, but that should not be read as an endorsement of this romantic drama. Any well-constructed 60-second PSA asking for money to fight a rare disease, or imploring you to sign your organ donor card, can have a similar emotional pull. That doesn't make it great cinema. Though it does make it 100 minutes shorter than 2 Hearts. ½