Love, Rosie is a 2014 British romantic comedy-drama directed by Christian Ditter, adapted from Cecelia Ahern's 2004 novel Where Rainbows End. Lily Collins and Sam Claflin star as Rosie and Alex — childhood best friends who spend over a decade locked in one of the most stubbornly avoidable will-they-won't-they situations the genre has produced.

The premise is straightforward. Two people, obviously in love, repeatedly thwarted by terrible timing, missed opportunities, and an absolute refusal to use their words. The film follows them across twelve years as they let life events, distance, other relationships, and an honestly impressive commitment to poor communication keep them apart.

Here is my honest reaction. For long stretches of this film, I was actively frustrated. Rosie in particular makes a string of decisions that left me wanting to reach into the screen. The amount of times these characters stand within arm's reach of each other with a clear chance to be honest and choose instead to deflect, deflect, deflect — it becomes a defining feature of the narrative. Whether that lands for you depends entirely on how much patience you have for the trope.

That said, the film does earn its emotional beats when they arrive. There are moments of genuine humour throughout that land well. And there is one specific scene in this film — anyone who has seen it will know which one — that genuinely got to me. It cuts through everything that came before it and lands with real weight. The performances from Collins and Claflin are also undeniable; whatever frustration the writing creates, the chemistry between them keeps the whole thing watchable.

In the final fifteen minutes the film mercifully delivers the character growth it has been holding back for the previous hour and a half. People say things out loud. Decisions get made. And as much as I rolled my eyes through the middle, I'll admit I felt the ending.

I am not the core audience for this film and I want to be honest about that. But if you genuinely enjoy rom-coms, this is one of the better ones the 2010s produced. It has heart, it has chemistry, and when it lands, it lands.

6 out of 10. Recommended — with reservations about your patience for miscommunication as plot fuel.