Love Happens

Love Happens

What is the key to any romantic comedy movie? Well of course it has to have that great central couple who, against all the odds, find themselves falling in love with one another.

And for Love Happens this is no different as Jennifer Aniston and Aaron Eckhart struggle to make sense of their unexpected feelings for one another this week.

When Dr Burke Ryan (Eckhart) self-help author arrives in Seattle to teach a sold-out seminar, he unexpectedly meets the one person who might finally be able to help him help himself.

Eloise Chandler (Aniston) has sworn off men and decided to focus on her floral business. However, when she meets Burke at the hotel where he's speaking, there is an instant attraction.

But will two people who have met the right person at exactly the wrong time be able to give love another chance?

Aniston and Eckhart are just the latest cute couple to grace the big screen this year so to celebrate the release of the film we take a look at the best pairings so far in 2009.

Sandra Bullock joins forces with Ryan Reynolds, who has been a busy boy this summer with Wolverine and Adventureland under his belt, for rom-com The Proposal.

However they are a couple forced together as publishing executive Margaret Tate (Bullock) is forced to marry her assistant Andrew Paxton in order to prevent being deported.

When they travel to Alaska to meet his family, the new couple has to fake their way through a surprise wedding thrown by his parents. Through all the chaos and lies the pair find themselves falling in love.

Oscar winners Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson came together earlier this year for their latest movie Last Chance Harvey.

New Yorker Harvey Shine is on the verge of losing his dead-end job as a jingle writer. But when he misses his flight home after his daughter's wedding he is fired on the spot.

Drowning his sorrows at the airport bar, Harvey strikes up a conversation with Kate, a slightly prickly, 40-something employee of the Office of National Statistics.

Kate, whose life is limited to work, the occasional humiliating blind date and endless phone calls from her smothering mother, is touched by Harvey, who finds himself energized by her intelligence and compassion.

Both lonely and disenchanted with the world and their lives the pair form this close bond that could develop into something more.

Adam was released earlier this year and saw Hugh Dancy and Rose Bryne develop a strong connection despite living incredibly different lives.

Adam is a handsome but intriguing young man who has all his life led a sheltered existence -- until he meets his new neighbour, Beth, a beautiful, cosmopolitan young woman who pulls him into the outside world.

Although communication between the two of them at times is difficult the film shows how far two people are willing to go outside of their comfort zones to help the other.

500 Days of Summer has been one of the most successful romantic comedies of the year so far and saw Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon Levitt once again joining forces.

When Tom, a hapless greeting card copywriter and hopeless romantic, is blindsided after his girlfriend summer dumps him, he shifts back and forth through various periods of their 500 days together to try and find out where it went wrong.

His reflections ultimately lead him to finally rediscover his true passions in life.

Other movies that have included some great couples this year include The Time Traveler's Wife, with Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams, Away We Go, with John Krasinski, Maya Rudolph and of course how can you forget Manny and Ellie in Ice Age 3.

Love Happens is released 9th October

Helen Earnshaw


by for www.femalefirst.co.uk
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