Love Happens

And so does shit. Take this movie, for instance, in which Aaron Eckhart plays a widower who deflects his own mourning into a self-help book and becomes a bogus grief guru. Here we learn that of all the ways motion-picture professionals might choose to develop that auspicious premise, crossing it with a misty-eyed Jennifer Aniston vehicle is not the best. Yet director Brandon Camp, co-squandering with writing partner Mike Thompson, charges forward nonetheless, proffering Aniston as the Seattle florist who gets our man’s heart to bloom again. Eckhart and various supporting actors, including Martin Sheen as his estranged father-in-law, do their best to keep the dignity dam from bursting, but this increasingly blatant weeper will not be contained. It has just enough sudsy manipulations and Emerald City skyline views to make the local convention and visitors bureau quite proud and the rest of us quite ashamed.