A Lovely Showdown

Valentine’s Day Directed by Garry Marshall

Runtime: 125 min.

Lola Montes (Criterion DVD) Directed by Max Ophuls

If you find yourself pressured by a sentimental loved one into seeing Garry Marshall’s Valentine’s Day, you still have movie (DVD) alternatives. Firstly, there’s Nea Vardalis’ I Hate Valentine’s Day, one of last year’s most underrated films—and one of the sweetest. Reliably good-hearted Marshall (a Bronx-born Catholic Italian embodying what Hollywood calls Jewish gemulitch), surely related to Vardalis’ kindly take on romantic cynicism.

The quasi epic Valentine’s Day inflates many of the same ideas in Vardalis’ small-scale work: Marshall’s film also centers around a flower shop (Ashton Kutcher plays a florist who discovers who he really loves). Marshall observes female romantic fatigue (Jessica Biel and Jennifer Garner are BFF’s who hold an "I Hate Valentine’s Day" dinner to boost each other’s single ladies’ wounded egos). Marshall is also conscientiously multi-culti with black, white, Latino, Indian, puppy love and gay romance blooming everywhere (as in Jamie Fox portraying a smitten sports reporter and Eric Dane playing a football star with a secret).

Yet, Vardalis not only beat Marshall to the punch, she beat him to the spiked punch: Vardalis conceived something more complex than a cavalcade featuring (mostly-TV) celebs; she created an ingeniously heartbroken rom-com. As florist Genevieve, Vardalis revealed the reasons behind women’s love-caution, evoking genuine romantic fears while Marshall’s epic merely checklists different reasons to buy chocolate. The best and worst thing I can say about Marshall’s film is that it ought to have come with commercial breaks for FTD and Ghiardelli’s.

Marshall’s selling point is no different than an episode of Access Hollywood. Look how titillating it is to speculate on Taylors [cq] Lautner and Swift’s love lives. Look at Shirley MacLaine and Hector Elizondo evoking old Hollywood by smooching during an al fresco screening of MacLaine’s 1959 Hot Spell. Look how satisfying it is that Julia Robert’s comeback (reuniting with Marshall after the unforgivable Pretty Woman) amounts to little more than a cameo. Impersonating an Iraq war vet, Roberts normalizes the war as a now acceptable—even heartwarming—part of contemporary American experience. This mushy subplot is more significant than The Hurt Locker.

Your second Valentine’s Day alternative is indisputably great: It’s [Criterion’s Max Ophuls collection]. Lola Montes is the new addition, and its ravishingly colored remastered version is an undeniable improvement, but the sad truth is: It’s still Lola Montes. Ophuls—one of the greats—did not go out with a bang. Lola Montes, his last film, is a sucker punch. His usual themes of rampant (human) sensuality, tragic ardor and universal passion—which distinguished his masterworks (respectively, La Ronde, The Earrings of Madame De and Le Plaisir)—are apparent in Lola Montes, but, alas, sluggishly. Fact is, Varadalis’ film is more enjoyable and Marshall’s film is no less "profound."

Lola Montes reveals the bitter truth that a cinematic great bowed out on poor terms. But it will enhance anyone’s Valentine’s Day to see Criterion’s lush DVDs of La Ronde, The Earrings of Madame De and Le Plaisir, which are the most profound movies I know about the interaction of romance and sexuality. (Think about it.) Whether you celebrate Valentine’s day Marshall-style or scrutinize it Vardalis-style, Ophuls knows your heart. His masterpieces are not pressure—they’re bliss.