‘Forever My Girl’ is Mills and Boon revisited

Until this film I didn’t quite understand what ‘tugging at the heartstrings’ meant. That the film’s rather caddish leading man is a singer puts a guitar in his hands. In one sequence his little daughter starts strumming the guitar without ever having touched a guitar. And at the end the father-daughter get on stage with their guitars and sing together, as fans go wild.

Those cheering crowds at the end are not quite what this film will get, firstly because it’s being watched at home, and really, how much can you cheer sitting on a sofa in your pyjamas pretending you are in a movie theatre(okay, wearing going-out clothes would’ve helped,I agree). And secondly, Forever My Girl doesn’t quite achieve that rousing affect which the best rom-coms, like say Bridesmaids, have on you.

But as far as modestly-ambitious rom-coms go this one has its manipulative moments that work fine. This is not a high-concept romance. Try this. An impossibly handsome man who ditched his impossibly pretty devoted girlfriend at the altar, returns home to discover he has an adorable 7-year old daughter.

And when I say adorable, I mean irresistibly impossibly so, imagine if Shirley Temple was as good an actor as Reese Witherspoon. That’s little Abby Ryder Forston for you. Needless to say , little Ms Forston steals every scene from her screen parents. Well done, Missie. Keep the faith alive.

As for the rest of the film it unfolded like a Rajesh Khanna romance with the man seeking forgiveness from the woman he betrayed, with some melodious songs. The Country music is well composed and feelingly put across and that feeling of being in a American smalltown where everyone knows everything, comes across in tidy scenes of meddlesome empathy,

Also the idea of the most famous achiever returning to his hostile town which has disowned him for his despicable behaviour,is interesting. Community, not family, comes first.This is pre-Coronova times.

Our hero Liam Page(Alex Roe)has a lot of atonement to achieve. Of course he gets there. That’s the difference between being Liam Page and Anshuman in Jab We Met.Of course everyone, including the woman whom he abandoned at the wedding, forgives him. Though I am not sure why.

The most favourite moment in this dainty nibbly yarn features Liam and his frantic publicist. When he finally answers her call and tells her he has come home to attend his best friend’s funeral, she quickly instructs her star-client.“Take as many pictures as you can. At the graveyard…Get into the coffin with your friend, if you can.”

Vultures in the media would identity with this.