Making a film is extremely difficult. Even on the rare occasions when a script is perfect, the complications of production often mean that its potential is never fully realised, and that’s before anyone gets into the challenges posed by casting, directing and marketing.
It’s strange then that some movies give themselves additional, and seemingly avoidable, problems that the audience are required to overcome. Which brings us nicely to Love Again.
Love Again is not even on the cusp of being a memorable romantic-comedy, especially because it apparently forgot that a prerequisite of the genre is to provide laughs. There are so many flaws with its acting performances and setting that I was never given a chance to actually invest in its story and characters. Both of which are already struggling because they’re so far-fetched and dull, respectively.
An adaptation of the 2016 German film SMS fur Dich, Love Again opens with Mira Ray (Priyanka Chopra), an up-and-coming illustrator who is firmly in love with her boyfriend John (Arinze Kene), living with him in New York City. That’s until John is suddenly killed in front of her eyes. Several years later, Mira is still struggling with her grief. Encouraged by her younger sister Suzy (Sofia Barclay), Mira moves back to the Big Apple and plunges back into the world of dating.
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Still in love with John, Mira starts sending romantic text messages to his old cell phone number as a coping mechanism. Mira is unaware, however, that John’s old number has been reassigned to Rob Burns's (Sam Heughan) new work phone. Having recently been dumped by his fiancee, Rob finds himself being drawn into Mira’s candid, vulnerable, and beautifully written texts.
At the same time, Rob is writing a feature profile on the singer Celine Dion. After making an impression on Dion at a press conference, and then confiding in her during a prolonged one-on-one interview, Rob decides that he wants to meet Mira in real life so that he can see whether or not he actually has real feelings for her.
While Love Again might have an outlandish plot, Heughan actually does a pretty impressive job of convincing viewers that Rob is genuinely smitten with Mira through her messages, without coming across as creepy. But that’s just about the only thing that Love Again gets right.
When Heughan and Chopra finally meet up there’s very little spark between the pair. They’re not helped by the fact that both of their characters have very little personality, with Mira’s only interesting facet of conversation being that she likes to ask people outlandish “would you rather”, questions.
Writer and director James Strouse’s script isn’t just weak when it comes to creating compelling and fascinating characters, though. There’s a complete dearth of jokes in Love Again. Lydia West and Barclay come the closest to eliciting a chortle in their supporting roles, while Dion’s acting chops are surprisingly strong. But Heughan and Chopra just don’t have the comedic skills to make the weak script shine. Especially since their intensity suggests that both think they’re in a drama, rather than a romantic-comedy.
Love Again’s biggest issue, though, is that it was obviously made in London but is set in New York. While that might not sound like too much of a problem, there’s so little to enjoy about the rest of the film that it quickly becomes distracting. More than that, most of the American characters are played by British actors, and their mid-Atlantic drawl only adds to the overall annoyance of the film.
Meanwhile, the film's inclusion of Dion is never justified, which makes it feel weird. Ultimately, it needed to lean into Dion and her music more. First of all by sticking to its original title, It’s All Coming Back To Me, which is, of course, one of her most famous songs. It wouldn’t have mattered if it did so in a cheesy fashion, that would have make it more light hearted and watchable. But by being semi-serious, you’re not sure whether to laugh or cry. So you end up doing neither.
Last five meetings
2013: South Korea 0-2 Brazil
2002: South Korea 2-3 Brazil
1999: South Korea 1-0 Brazil
1997: South Korea 1-2 Brazil
1995: South Korea 0-1 Brazil
Note: All friendlies
Dr Graham's three goals
Short term
Establish logistics and systems needed to globally deploy vaccines
Intermediate term
Build biomedical workforces in low- and middle-income nations
Long term
A prototype pathogen approach for pandemic preparedness
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Results:
First Test: New Zealand 30 British & Irish Lions 15
Second Test: New Zealand 21 British & Irish Lions 24
Third Test: New Zealand 15 British & Irish Lions 15
The Africa Institute 101
Housed on the same site as the original Africa Hall, which first hosted an Arab-African Symposium in 1976, the newly renovated building will be home to a think tank and postgraduate studies hub (it will offer master’s and PhD programmes). The centre will focus on both the historical and contemporary links between Africa and the Gulf, and will serve as a meeting place for conferences, symposia, lectures, film screenings, plays, musical performances and more. In fact, today it is hosting a symposium – 5-plus-1: Rethinking Abstraction that will look at the six decades of Frank Bowling’s career, as well as those of his contemporaries that invested social, cultural and personal meaning into abstraction.
Did you know?
Brunch has been around, is some form or another, for more than a century. The word was first mentioned in print in an 1895 edition of Hunter’s Weekly, after making the rounds among university students in Britain. The article, entitled Brunch: A Plea, argued the case for a later, more sociable weekend meal. “By eliminating the need to get up early on Sunday, brunch would make life brighter for Saturday night carousers. It would promote human happiness in other ways as well,” the piece read. “It is talk-compelling. It puts you in a good temper, it makes you satisfied with yourself and your fellow beings, it sweeps away the worries and cobwebs of the week.” More than 100 years later, author Guy Beringer’s words still ring true, especially in the UAE, where brunches are often used to mark special, sociable occasions.
Specs
Engine: 2-litre
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic
Power: 255hp
Torque: 273Nm
Price: Dh240,000
How Apple's credit card works
The Apple Card looks different from a traditional credit card — there's no number on the front and the users' name is etched in metal. The card expands the company's digital Apple Pay services, marrying the physical card to a virtual one and integrating both with the iPhone. Its attributes include quick sign-up, elimination of most fees, strong security protections and cash back.
What does it cost?
Apple says there are no fees associated with the card. That means no late fee, no annual fee, no international fee and no over-the-limit fees. It also said it aims to have among the lowest interest rates in the industry. Users must have an iPhone to use the card, which comes at a cost. But they will earn cash back on their purchases — 3 per cent on Apple purchases, 2 per cent on those with the virtual card and 1 per cent with the physical card. Apple says it is the only card to provide those rewards in real time, so that cash earned can be used immediately.
What will the interest rate be?
The card doesn't come out until summer but Apple has said that as of March, the variable annual percentage rate on the card could be anywhere from 13.24 per cent to 24.24 per cent based on creditworthiness. That's in line with the rest of the market, according to analysts
What about security?
The physical card has no numbers so purchases are made with the embedded chip and the digital version lives in your Apple Wallet on your phone, where it's protected by fingerprints or facial recognition. That means that even if someone steals your phone, they won't be able to use the card to buy things.
Is it easy to use?
Apple says users will be able to sign up for the card in the Wallet app on their iPhone and begin using it almost immediately. It also tracks spending on the phone in a more user-friendly format, eliminating some of the gibberish that fills a traditional credit card statement. Plus it includes some budgeting tools, such as tracking spending and providing estimates of how much interest could be charged on a purchase to help people make an informed decision.
* Associated Press
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
The Equaliser 2
Director Antoine Fuqua
Starring: Denzel Washington, Bill Pullman, Melissa Leo, Ashton Sanders
Three stars
Dhadak
Director: Shashank Khaitan
Starring: Janhvi Kapoor, Ishaan Khattar, Ashutosh Rana
Stars: 3
Emergency
Director: Kangana Ranaut
Stars: Kangana Ranaut, Anupam Kher, Shreyas Talpade, Milind Soman, Mahima Chaudhry
Rating: 2/5
Spare
Profile
Company name: Spare
Started: March 2018
Co-founders: Dalal Alrayes and Saurabh Shah
Based: UAE
Sector: FinTech
Investment: Own savings. Going for first round of fund-raising in March 2019
Unresolved crisis
Russia and Ukraine have been locked in a bitter conflict since 2014, when Ukraine’s Kremlin-friendly president was ousted, Moscow annexed Crimea and then backed a separatist insurgency in the east.
Fighting between the Russia-backed rebels and Ukrainian forces has killed more than 14,000 people. In 2015, France and Germany helped broker a peace deal, known as the Minsk agreements, that ended large-scale hostilities but failed to bring a political settlement of the conflict.
The Kremlin has repeatedly accused Kiev of sabotaging the deal, and Ukrainian officials in recent weeks said that implementing it in full would hurt Ukraine.
Tightening the screw on rogue recruiters
The UAE overhauled the procedure to recruit housemaids and domestic workers with a law in 2017 to protect low-income labour from being exploited.
Only recruitment companies authorised by the government are permitted as part of Tadbeer, a network of labour ministry-regulated centres.
A contract must be drawn up for domestic workers, the wages and job offer clearly stating the nature of work.
The contract stating the wages, work entailed and accommodation must be sent to the employee in their home country before they depart for the UAE.
The contract will be signed by the employer and employee when the domestic worker arrives in the UAE.
Only recruitment agencies registered with the ministry can undertake recruitment and employment applications for domestic workers.
Penalties for illegal recruitment in the UAE include fines of up to Dh100,000 and imprisonment
But agents not authorised by the government sidestep the law by illegally getting women into the country on visit visas.
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Globalization and its Discontents Revisited
Joseph E. Stiglitz
W. W. Norton & Company
THE BIO
Born: Mukalla, Yemen, 1979
Education: UAE University, Al Ain
Family: Married with two daughters: Asayel, 7, and Sara, 6
Favourite piece of music: Horse Dance by Naseer Shamma
Favourite book: Science and geology
Favourite place to travel to: Washington DC
Best advice you’ve ever been given: If you have a dream, you have to believe it, then you will see it.
In the Restaurant: Society in Four Courses
Christoph Ribbat
Translated by Jamie Searle Romanelli
Pushkin Press
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