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Love Happens | 2009 | PG-13 | - 4.3.4

A widower (Aaron Eckhart) writes a book teaching people how to cope with the death of a loved one and becomes an overnight self-help guru, but cannot seem to help himself deal with the loss of his own wife. After running into a freewheeling woman (Jennifer Aniston) while giving one of his seminars, she teaches him how to truly help himself. Also with Dan Fogler, John Carroll Lynch, Martin Sheen, Judy Greer and France Conroy. Directed by Brandon Camp. [1:49]

SEX/NUDITY 4 - A woman recites a portion of a very profane and sexually explicit slam-poem (it includes references to masturbation, male and female genitals, and bestiality) to an elderly woman, who is visibly confused and upset by it. A woman confesses to a large number of people in a room that she and her husband had agreed that they would make a cast mold of his genitals, so that after he died she could still be intimate with him and she acknowledges that she had made the cast and implies that she had used it. A man reads a card aloud to a woman that jokingly details the physical implications of an intimate night. A woman makes a comment about she and the man consummating their relationship while watching pornography.
 A man jokingly asks another man, "Are you as hot for me right now as I am hot for me right now?" A man tells a woman that he is waiting to see her "strut her stuff" as she walks away. A woman tells another woman that her relationship with a man was over because he had an affair with another woman. A woman asks a man if he was involved in an affair after finding evidence that a woman had been at his house the night before, the man denies it, and then admits that a woman had come over, but "nothing happened." A woman asks another woman if she had engaged in sex the previous night, and the woman giggles and denies it. A man tells a woman that she has obviously had a lot of attention from men since she had gotten her "first training bra." A man jokingly tells a bird to "go meet girls." A woman tells a man that he obviously picks up women in every city he goes to, and that he is probably even married and his wife believes that he is a great guy even though he is constantly cheating behind her back; she then refers to finding a pair of boxers with lipstick on them.
 A man tells a group of people that he sees a "naked hot-tubber" and we see in the distance a person (its unclear if it is a male or female), their back bare and visible, getting out of a hot-tub. A woman wearing a tank top is shown lying in bed on her side, a shirtless man wears swim trunks, and a woman is shown wearing a low-cut top and her cleavage is visible.
 A woman walks into a men's restroom to speak to a man, the man is surprised, and another man flushes a toilet, clears his throat and walks out of the stall.
 A man asks a woman if she would like to get to know him better, and they embrace in a loving kiss. A man kisses a woman on the cheek. A man watches a video that has a woman blowing a kiss at the camera and proclaiming her love for the man.

VIOLENCE/GORE 3 - We see a car crashing into a pole on the driver's side, crushing the body of the car; the panicked driver's face is flashed on the screen and a voice-over says that she died instantly in the car accident. We hear the sound of screeching brakes as we see car wheels spinning, and the car careens off the road (the screen goes black and the sound of crashing is heard). We see the flash of a car accident -- a car slamming into a pole on the passenger side -- as a man says that he had been driving a car when his wife had been killed in the car accident.
 Two men and two women walk across a bed of hot coals in front of a crowd of people: one man lingers for several minutes (he does not once wince, but smoke comes from his feet and we later see the man's feet covered in welts, scabbed and burned).
 A man breaks into the house attempting to steal a parrot; he runs out of the house with a birdcage, jumps into a van and shouts at the driver to drive fast.
 A man runs in front of a fast-moving car, causing the driver to come to a screeching halt. A man absentmindedly walks into a crowded city street, causing a car to come to a screeching halt.
 A man tells another man that his son had died recently and the man says he knows the pain he is feeling, since his wife had also died. A man tells a crowd of people about another man who had committed suicide following the death of his brother, including detailing that the man had "pulled his double barrel shotgun out," and "put it to his chin and blew his head off." A man tells a woman that his wife died. A man details to a group of people that his son had died by falling off a scaffold and that his spinal cord had snapped in two. An older man tells a man that he does not sleep well after his daughter had been crushed to death in a car accident. A woman implies that a man had died while deployed for the military, unable to return to his wife. A man and woman discuss funerals and he describes in great detail the funeral of his deceased wife. A man tells another man that he does not blame him for the death of his daughter and they share a tear-filled embrace. A man, slightly in a daze, confesses to a man that he was unable to hold his son after he had fallen off a scaffold. A man confesses to a woman that he did not attend his wife's funeral, and in fact had completely blocked all feelings of loss and mourning, including refusing to care for their bird or speak to her parents. A man asks a crowd if they are able to deal with the death of a loved one. A man jokes that if a man does not calm down that he might have a heart attack and the other man jokes that he had four heart attacks already that day. A woman jokingly asks a man if he was committing animal cruelty by releasing a parrot into the wild. Two men joke about a man breaking and entering into a house. A man says he had "reamed" customer service. A woman recites a profane, sexually explicit slam poem in front of a large crowd, including references to male genitals.
 A man shouts at a woman after he catches her faking that she was deaf. A man shouts that another man had broken into his house. A man angrily lashes out at another man. A man angrily shouts at a woman. A man shouts at another man who shouts back, screaming that the man knows nothing about his loss. A man shouts at a man for his irresponsible behavior. A woman shouts at another woman, reprimanding her. A man shouts at a woman.
 Two men and a woman pull chewing gum out of their mouths and squish it on a wall covered in chewing gum. A woman says that she baked her husband's ashes into oatmeal raisin cookies; she opens a cookie jar and ash-covered cookies are visible.

LANGUAGE 4 - 1 obscene hand gesture, 3 scatological terms, 4 anatomical terms, 3 sexual references, 18 mild obscenities, name-calling (hypocrite, slippery, nosey), 4 religious profanities, 11 religious exclamations.

SUBSTANCE USE - A bottle of vodka is shown next to a half-full glass, a man pours vodka into a glass and drinks, a woman orders a drink for a man who tells her that he does not drink and says that drinking is "like putting a band aid on a bullet wound," a man drinks a presumably alcoholic drink, two men sit at a bar with bottles of alcohol and one man orders a drink, a man takes another man's drink and downs it, a woman picks up an empty wine glass from a table, two men stand in front of a bar and are asked by a bartender if they would like a drink (they both refuse), a man sits at a bar and drinks a drink quickly, a woman holding a drink orders a round of drinks for a small group of men and women, and a woman gathers beer bottles from a counter and puts them in the trash. One woman picks up a tube from a hookah, takes a puff and offers it to a man who takes it and takes a puff and begins to cough. A man discusses the addiction of smoking with a woman while coaching her on how to quit, and a man jokingly asks a woman if she had taken any "cold medicine" and she responds that she had not.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Death, coping with the death of a loved one, dishonesty, breaking and entering, theft, self-help, homosexuality.

MESSAGE - Sometimes you must help others deal with pain before you can deal with it yourself.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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