The Vow (2012 film)

The Vow is a 2012 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Sucsy and written by Abby Kohn, Marc Silverstein, and Jason Katims, inspired by the true story of Kim and Krickitt Carpenter. The film stars Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum as Paige and Leo Collins, with Sam Neill, Scott Speedman, Jessica Lange and Jessica McNamee in supporting roles. As of 2013, The Vow was the eighth highest-grossing romantic drama film produced since 1980. This was Spyglass Entertainment's last film before the company's closure in 2012 and its revival in 2019.
Paige Collins and her husband Leo Collins come out of a movie theater on a snowy evening. On their way home, at a stop sign, she unbuckles her seatbelt to lean over and kiss him. At that very moment, a salt truck rams their car from behind and Paige crashes through the windshield.
Both of them are rushed to the emergency room, and as Leo, in a voice-over, talks about how "moments of impact help in finding who we are," the movie cuts to how Paige and Leo first met. The scenes of their courtship, engagement, and wedding at the Art Institute of Chicago are interwoven with the present.
Paige is put into an induced coma, but when she regains consciousness, she has lost all memories of the past few years. When her wealthy parents, Bill and Rita Thornton, learn about this, they visit her and meet Leo for the first time.
Paige does not understand how he could be married to her yet have not met her parents, and she finds it even stranger that he does not know either. Nor does she understand why she left law school, broke off her engagement with her previous fiancé, Jeremy, and lost contact with her family and friends. Her parents insist on taking her home with them and Paige agrees.
Paige wants evidence of their love, so Leo plays her a voice message in which she sounds very happy and romantic. She decides to return to him, hoping it will help her regain her lost memories. Paige is welcomed home with a surprise party thrown by her friends, but as she is not able to recall any of them, she feels overwhelmed and the party immediately ends.
The next day Paige ventures out to her regular café but loses her way back. She calls her mother, but when she returns to Leo, she dresses and behaves differently. That evening, her parents invite Leo and Paige to dinner; later, her sister Gwen and her fiancé invite them to a bar. Leo comes to feel that he doesn't fit in with Paige's family.
Paige meets Jeremy again at the bar. Realizing that she is in love with Jeremy, Leo persists in his attempts to help her regain her lost memory, but Paige secretly meets Jeremy at his office and kisses him despite not knowing the reason for their broken engagement. She asks him about it, but his answer is ambiguous; he is still clearly attracted to her.
During an incident in which Leo gives Paige a tour of her own studio, she lashes out at him. With Gwen's wedding approaching, she decides to stay with her parents until the wedding. Though Leo asks her out on a date and spends a night with her, their relationship is further strained when Paige's dad attempts to persuade Leo to divorce his daughter and Leo punches Jeremy for talking about wanting to bed his wife. Paige rejoins law school and Leo signs divorce papers once he reaches the epiphany that her memory may never return.
At a floral store, Paige meets her old friend Diane, who is unaware of Paige's amnesia. Diane apologizes for having had an affair with Paige's dad, thus alerting Paige as to why she had left her family. When she confronts her mother about this, Rita tells her that she decided to stay with Bill for all the things he had done right instead of leaving him for one transgression. Paige then asks Leo why he never told her about her father's affair, and he replies he wanted to earn her love instead of driving her away from her parents.
While in class, Paige starts sketching and comes to realize why she first left law school. Despite her father's misgivings about her quitting law school, she reassures him that she will always be his daughter no matter what. Paige continues her interest in art, eventually returning to sculpting and drawing. Though Jeremy confesses he broke up with his girlfriend in hopes of winning Paige back, she turns him down, stating that she needs to know what life would be like without him.
As the seasons change, Leo discusses his philosophy about "moments of impact," whose potential for change has ripple effects far beyond what can be predicted. Back in her room, Paige finds the menu card on which she had written her wedding vows and is deeply moved. The movie ends with Paige finding Leo at their regular café. They admit to each other that they are not seeing anyone, agree to have dinner together at a new place, and walk away arm in arm.
Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum's casting was announced by Variety in June 2010. Filming took place from August until November 2010 in Toronto and Chicago.
The Vow is loosely based on the actual relationship of Kim and Krickitt Carpenter, who wrote a book about their marriage, also known as The Vow. Ten weeks after their wedding on September 18, 1993, the couple was involved in a serious car crash. Krickitt suffered a brain trauma, which erased all memories of her romance with Kim as well as their marriage. Kim was still deeply in love with his wife, although she viewed him as a stranger after the crash. In 2018, however, he admitted to having an affair and they divorced.
The film was developed as early as 1996, when Caravan Pictures bought the rights to the memoir, then the entire development slate was transferred to Spyglass Entertainment when the company first set up. Stephen Herek was attached to direct at first. Disney was first offered to distribute the film, then sold to Paramount Pictures in turnaround, before landing at Sony.
The soundtrack was released on February 7, 2012, through Rhino Records. The film score, written and composed by Rachel Portman and Michael Brook, was released digitally on a separate album on February 7, 2012, through Madison Gate Records.
The digital version of the soundtrack also contains "England" by The National.
Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval rating of 31% based on 134 reviews and an average rating of 4.95/10. The site's consensus reads, "Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams do their best with what they're given, but The Vow is too shallow and familiar to satisfy the discriminating date-night filmgoer." On Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating to reviews, the film received an average score of 43 out of 100 based on 28 critics, which indicates "mixed or average reviews."
Emma Dibdin from Total Film gave the film a three-star rating out of five, commenting, "There's an essential sweetness at work here, thanks partly to McAdams and partly to an unusually chaste love story that ultimately keeps melodrama at bay." Empire critic Helen O'Hara gave the film a three stars rating out of five, also. She found McAdams "excellent" and Tatum "surprisingly heartbreaking" and concluded, "The few weaknesses in the plot can be overlooked as The Vow makes for a wonderful – if a bit teary – romance that is brilliantly acted." The Washington Post's Stephanie Merry wrote, "It's a shame things are so black and white because the movie has more promise – and more laughs – than trailers suggest." She added "Tatum, while a bit deficient in the dramatic acting department, delivers some memorable quips. He and McAdams also have chemistry."
Giving the film 2.5 stars out of 4, Roger Ebert from the Chicago Sun-Times found it "pleasant enough as a date movie, but that's all." USA Today wrote, "It may appeal to the most rabid fans of tearjerk romances like The Notebook, but it's a hard-to-swallow, maudlin tale." Betsy Sharkey, a film critic from the Los Angeles Times wrote, "Despite the sweet story, this is a movie that leaves you wanting more. To care more, to cry more, to love more." ReelViews' James Berardinelli was very negative about the film. He wrote, "With its would-be crowd-pleasing contrivances and rote adherence to formula, [this film] offers almost no redeeming characteristics. [...] This is for young women what Transformers is for young men." He concluded by describing the film as a "heartless, soulless product."
The Vow debuted at #1 in its opening weekend, with $15.4 million on opening day and $41.2 million over the weekend. On the Valentine's Day, it grossed $11.6 million, breaking Hitch's record $7.5 million for the highest-grossing mid-week Valentine's Day. That record would be surpassed by Bob Marley: One Love in 2024 with $14 million. The film also earned around $9.7 million internationally that weekend.
On the weekend lasting from February 24–26, The Vow became the first film of 2012 in North America to cross the $100 million mark, and the third film to cross the $100 million mark worldwide behind Underworld: Awakening and Journey 2: The Mysterious Island. The film grossed $125 million in North America and $71.1 million in other countries for a worldwide total of $196.1 million. It is the eighth highest-grossing romantic drama film since 1980.
The film's DVD and Blu-ray Disc were released on May 8, 2012.