Love Happens (2009 film)

Love Happens is a 2009 American romantic drama film written by Mike Thompson and Brandon Camp, and directed by Brandon Camp. Starring Aaron Eckhart and Jennifer Aniston. It was released on September 18, 2009.
Plot.
Burke Ryan (Aaron Eckhart), is a successful therapist, holder of a Ph.D. and author of a self-help book that gives advice about dealing with the loss of a loved one. He writes the book after his wife dies in a car accident as a way to deal with the grief.
While giving a workshop in Seattle, where his wife was from, he meets Eloise (Jennifer Aniston), a creative floral designer who owns a flower shop. She spurns his initial advance as, until then, her relationships with men have not gone well, but after a heated exchange in the men's restroom, she meets him for dinner. Even though the dinner is awkward, they begin spending time together although, as she insists to her mother and her employee Marty (Judy Greer), they are not "dating". Burke also tries to avoid his father-in-law (Martin Sheen), who believes him to be not following his own advice.
During the workshop, Burke pays special attention to a man named Walter (John Carroll Lynch), a former contractor now working as a nightly janitor after his son died falling off a scaffold, resulting in the loss of his marriage and construction business. Walter came to the seminar on the insistence of his sister, but is unwilling to participate due to his reluctance to express his emotions. Burke ultimately gets through to Walter by helping him remember his passion for construction and buys him new tools to restart his business.
Eloise comes to suspect Burke is hiding secrets regarding the loss of his wife. She eventually learns the truth from Burke's manager Lane (Dan Fogler) and tells Burke to stop punishing himself. He confesses to an audience that, in reality, he was the one driving the car when his wife died, and not her, as he previously maintained. Due to this, he blames himself for her death and has yet to confront his pain. His father-in-law, having snuck into the seminar to publicly call him out, comes forward to assure him that his wife's death wasn't his fault, that his in-laws were only upset that he wouldn't mourn her death with them. Their reconciliation onstage receives applause from the audience. Afterward, Burke's father-in-law suggests that it's time to move on with his life. Burke decides to stay in Seattle and goes to Eloise, telling her that she had spent the last few days getting to know the part of him that was not available and wondered was she interested in getting to know the part of him that was.
Soundtrack.
Additional music by:
Production.
During development, the film was known as "Brand New Day" and "Traveling".
The film takes place in Seattle, Washington, and was filmed in Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia.
On September 15, 2009, a lawsuit was filed by two writers claiming that the film's premise was stolen from them, seeking an injunction against its release or to be awarded the film's future profits, estimated at $100,000,000.
Reception.
Rotten Tomatoes reported that 17% of critics gave positive reviews based on 109 reviews with a score of 3.79/10. The site's consensus states: ""Love Happens" is a dull, chemistry-free affair that under-utilizes its appealing leads." Another review aggretator, Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating from reviews of mainstream critics, gave the film a "generally unfavorable" score of 33% based on 25 reviews.
On its opening weekend, the film opened at #4 behind "I Can Do Bad All By Myself", "The Informant!", and "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" respectively with $8,057,010.
Home media.
"Love Happens" was released on DVD & Blu-ray on February 2, 2010. It grossed $7,721,633 in US DVD sales.