It is a small but subtle twist of many that makes “Love Language” so enchanting that Lou (Chloë Grace Moretz) longs to hear the words “I love you,” but not exactly in the way that you would think. She was recently unceremoniously dumped by her fiancé Graham (Daniel David Stewart), though you get the sense that he was never going to be the great passion of her life when that would actually be writing. There’s a bit more regret in her voice when she talks about the novel she’s put off writing for the last few years than the end of her latest romantic relationship, even though it thrusts her headlong into a period of mourning which is made all the harder by the impending nuptials of one of her best friends Tilda (Billie Lourd). Quite literally a bridesmaid and not the bride at the ceremony, it can feel as if life’s passing her by, though some mild relief is offered when she sees the impact her words can have after giving an uncredited polish to Tilda’s vows.
Not surprisingly, the writing in Joey Power’s solo directorial debut is what makes it special when it may unfold as an escapist fantasy but holds real emotion throughout. Lou’s work on her friend’s speech is a poorly kept secret, leading a few other brides-to-be to ask for her help, and while romance with someone else could be in the cards for Lou, it really is a story of falling back in love with herself after becoming disenchanted with all areas of her life in which she made any significant emotional investment. Hardly eager to jump back into the dating pool after becoming single once again, she isn’t inclined to bury her head in work either when jumping on conference calls to come up with meme material for a brand marketer wasn’t how she thought she’d make a living as a writer, but Tilda’s wedding unexpectedly brings prospects on both fronts when she catches the eye of Tilda’s cousin Dash (Anthony Ramos) from across the room while the bride’s friends ask if she might take paid gigs to give their vows a rewrite. She isn’t interested in either at first, but after some encouragement from Dash over drinks, at least the latter starts to make sense.
Encouragement is seen as a form of affection from the start, making the slight bit of nudging that Dash provides to Lou come across later as the biggest romantic gesture possible when whatever confidence she had in herself has gradually been depleted, and Lou can be surprised to learn that the compensation from ghostwriting wedding vows isn’t the additional income that could keep her head above water in Chicago but to hear appreciation for something she’s penned. Yet this incognito side gig becomes far from ideal when Lou inadvertently is faced with writing a set of vows for old college classmate that she once had feelings for in Warren (Manny Jacinto) after his fiancee Olivia (Isabel May), a well-to-do entrepreneur, hires her without either doing significant vetting. At first, the arrangement works well enough when both Olivia and Warren, who remains in the dark, are both happy to have Lou around as she takes notes to incorporate into her speech, but she can’t help but think that the two aren’t right for each other and memories are revived of the time when she thought she was for Warren herself, giving her writer’s block that upsets Olivia as the big day approaches and complicates a relationship with Dash that never gets as serious as he’d like it to be.
“Love Language” could be mildly unsatisfying if it were to see Lou having to make a decision about the rest of her life tied up in who she ultimately moves forward with from two potential suitors, but while Moretz has flirty chemistry with both Jacinto and Ramos, Power imagines that feeling confident about any choice at all is a step in the right direction after the character always seems to place a safe distance between herself and a commitment of any kind that could hurt her, making the idea of any longterm union seem remote. The film gets to have his cake and eat it too, playfully engaging with romantic comedy expectations and expertly presenting the fantasy that Lou has bought into of what her late twenties should look like while showing how disillusioning the reality has been and Moretz plays her role to perfection at a cool remove, springing to life when Lou allows her own excitement to rise to the surface.
After Power saw beauty in relationships that had their imperfections in his collaborations with Hannah Marks on the scripts for “After Everything” and “Banana Split,” it is the uneasy one that Lou has to resolve within herself to find personal affirmation that becomes the most charming part of “Love Language,” boasting plenty of others when just as Lou is reminded of her strengths, audiences are as well of what romcoms can be when such savvy entries into this genre have been few and far between of late.
“Love Language” does not yet have U.S. distribution.