It’s mid-February, which means love is in the air, elaborate dates are being planned and couples are flocking to multiplexes, perhaps hoping to see a much-advertised new romantic entanglement from the lovably yearning singleton Bridget Jones. They won’t actually find her there, though; in the United States, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy is only playing on Peacock. In US movie theaters, the date crowd can find plenty of Valentine’s Day-themed entertainment, but they’ll have to steel themselves for the sight of reds and pinks that aren’t strictly decorative.
This year’s gory holiday-adjacent offerings including the Valentine’s-set Love Hurts, in which a seemingly mild-mannered realtor reconnects with a lost love and they are violently confronted with all the people who want both of them dead; the Valentine’s-set Heart Eyes, in which a masked serial killer stalks and murders couples; and Companion, about a robot girlfriend who turns deadly when betrayed by stupid humans. Couples who don’t care for horror or action might instead turn toward (or stumble upon) I Love You Forever, an ironically titled indie dramedy about an emotionally abusive relationship, or Love Me, which is a sweet and earnest love story … that also takes place between two machines long after the complete demise of Earth’s population.
