Book Of Love Review: Sam Claflin Leads Safe & Uneven Romantic Comedy

Sam Claflin has carved out a nice little niche for himself as a romantic leading man. Book of Love builds upon the work he has done in Love, Rosie, Me Before You, and more recently Love Wedding Repeat. In Book of Love, he plays a button-upped, repressed author who is about to get a crash course on what it means to write about love and sex.

Claflin plays Henry Copper, a newly published writer who is struggling with a flopped book. Six months after publishing, his English publisher, played by Lucy Punch – who is inexplicably has no English accent – tells him that his book is a sensation in Mexico. Henry is filled with excitement at this development. That is, until he is hit with the reality upon his arrival that his Spanish translator, Maria Rodriguez (Verónica Echegui), changed everything. What was once a boring, sexless, emotionless mediation on romantic connection is now a steamy erotic novel. The two writers are then forced to pull off the charade that Henry wrote this version throughout a three-city book tour. In the good old-fashioned romantic comedy way, these two will discover that opposites do attract.

Related: Sam Claflin’s 10 Best Movies (According To Rotten Tomatoes)

The film is based on the premise that a man who looks like Sam Claflin would not have a semblance of a romantic life or any meaningful sexual experiences. Once the audience can overcome that hurdle, Henry stands as a man who recoils from the thought of sex, intimacy, lust, and passion. He is humorless and seemingly at a complete loss at what makes an interesting book. His Mexican counterpart, Maria, is the opposite of that. She isn’t afraid to be expressive and has experiences that allow her to find the right words for a romance novel. She also has a deep passion for writing, but is limited by her circumstances, which only fuels her creativity. Book of Love could only work if it bridges these two different people and their differing ideas of love together, and it doesn’t wholly succeed. While the film plays out how one would expect, it feels like it has to for the sake of the story.

The pacing of the film feels off and there is little development of Henry and Maria’s feelings for each other. It sort of just happens. While Claflin and Echegui do a great deal with their performances, the film’s overall writing doesn’t quite match up to what they are giving. The best parts are the scenes that aim to develop the romance in the latter half of the film. However, it is the connective tissue around their love story and the contrived obstacles that throw the film off-balance. Book of Love never meaningfully engages with Maria’s plight or, to an extent, Henry’s. The most disappointing aspect of the film is that it doesn’t lean into the telenovela elements that appear prominently in the third act, leaving viewers wondering where this energy was before.

The key element of any good romantic comedy is the pairing. Claflin and Echegui are great in their respective roles (even though Spaniards playing Mexicans is not an ideal casting choice). They do a lot to make you feel what their characters are feeling. They also have great chemistry and play off of each other well, selling the growing romance through their body language. Both effectively express the conflicting emotions their characters experience as they embark on this strange literary adventure. Claflin and Echegui are well worth the price of admission (or is that price of subscription now?) and, despite how uneven the film is, they leave a very positive lasting impression.

While the film fumbles with the writing and the plotting of the story, Book of Love manages to be cute and delightful. It doesn’t do anything extremely special, but for fans of romantic comedies, it will scratch an itch. There is a considerable effort to not make the production look like it is under heavy COVID restrictions. For the most part, Book of Love succeeds at feeling like a normal pre-pandemic romcom. Aside from one sad attempt to replicate Carnival, the production design and cinematography do a lot of heavy lifting to distract from the lack of people roaming about. Analeine Cal y Mayor makes all the right choices directing this picture, though it could have been more visually expansive, capturing the absurdity of the situation in a heightened way.

Book of Love is pleasing at best and boring at worst. It seems to suffer from a different writing problem than Henry’s and is lacking the exciting nature of Maria’s. It lands somewhere in the middle, restrained, cheesy (in that sweet sentimental way), and forgettable. It will hold one’s attention as they watch, especially if viewers are eager for that sweet romantic-comedy buzz. But beyond that, the film is one of many streaming features that will sadly fade into the ether once it becomes available to all. Despite everything, the film’s stars are endearing and perhaps that is all one needs.

NEXT: The Tender Bar Review: A Meandering, Yet Heartwarming Coming Of Age Story

Book of Love is now available to stream on Amazon Prime Video as of Friday, February 4. The film is 106 minutes long and is not rated.

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