Love Language
October 21st, 2026
MOVIE: LOVE LANGUAGE
STARRING: CHLOË GRACE MORETZ, ISABEL MAY, BILLIE LOURD, LUKAS GAGE, ANTHONY RAMOS, MANNY JACINTO
DIRECTED BY: JOEY POWER
AMovieGuy.com’s RATING: 2 STARS (Out of 4)
RATED: PG-13
RUN TIME: 104 MINUTES
For most of my adult life, I have wanted Chicago to become the kind of cinematic character that New York has been for decades. Yes, there’s The Dark Knight and My Best Friend’s Wedding, but to me, Chicago is the most beautiful city in the world. The architecture alone makes everything feel romantic. When I saw the trailer for Love Language, a romantic comedy featuring gorgeous shots of Chicago, I had to see it. I desperately want a movie to get Chicago right. Love Language attempts to make the Windy City an integral part of its backdrop, but in the foreground is a story that is equal parts contrived and predictable. Sadly, with Love Language, something gets lost in translation.
Lou (Chloë Grace Moretz) is a writer who works in marketing for a food company. We meet her at her lowest point, shortly after her fiancé ends their engagement. To make matters worse, she must now serve as maid of honor for her best friend, Tilda (Billie Lourd). With the breakup still fresh, Lou is hardly in the right frame of mind for wedding festivities. But when Tilda develops her own anxieties about marriage, she asks Lou to write her wedding vows. Lou does such a good job that other couples begin hiring her to write theirs, too. Things get complicated when Olivia (Isabel May) hires Lou, only for Lou to discover that Olivia’s fiancé is Warren (Manny Jacinto), her old college crush. With her feelings for Warren resurfacing and a new friendship developing with Dash (Anthony Ramos), Lou finds herself in an increasingly complicated situation. Getting into the business of love is a tricky thing.
Written and directed by Joey Power, Love Language is, in many respects, a well-made film. Chicago looks gorgeous, with beautifully captured views of the paths alongside Millennium Park and the classic bridges along Wacker Drive. But beyond these appealing images, Power and company seem to have little understanding of either Chicago or romance. The screenplay feels as though it were filtered through ChatGPT with a prompt to replicate a generic romantic comedy. This is a far lesser version of When Harry Met Sally, or You’ve Got Mail, lacking the charm, wit, and memorable writing that made those films work. The result is a story in which nearly every development feels predictable, while the overly serious tone leaves little room for genuine laughter. Instead of being swept up in the romance, I found myself waiting for the movie to end.
It’s the Chicago of it all that truly disappoints. As a lifelong Chicagoan, I recognize plenty of locations, but the neighborhoods feel randomly selected, making it hard to tell where these characters actually live. The geography is equally muddled. Lou appears to live in Printers Row, yet she wanders around Streeterville and possibly Wicker Park, with little sense of how these locations fit into her daily life. I appreciate that Love Language wants to take advantage of Chicago’s beauty, but the city feels more like a collection of pretty postcards than a living, breathing place. The film might enjoy being set in Chicago, but it could just as easily have been shot in Canada without changing much of the story.
Unfortunately, the lack of attention to detail extends well beyond the setting. Moretz’s character is conflicted about writing wedding vows, but her anxiety feels juvenile rather than emotionally convincing. Dash is clearly presented as the kind, adorable person Lou needs in her life, yet the screenplay struggles to make her hesitation believable when she still harbors feelings for Warren. We’re repeatedly told what Lou should be feeling, but the performances and writing never make those emotions convincing. I was never buying it.
The performances are largely mundane, the writing is stale, and the romance never comes alive. For a film that offers so many beautiful images of Chicago, Love Language fails to capture what makes the city special beyond its architecture. I wanted a romantic comedy that would make me fall in love with Chicago all over again. Instead, I got a predictable, uninspired story that wastes its setting and leaves little to remember. Love Language is nothing to talk about.
2 STARS
LOVE LANGUAGE IS AVAILABLE ON VOD ON OCTOBER 23RD, 2026.
Written by: Leo Brady
