Love, Rosie

image for Love, Rosie

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Not suitable under 15; parental guidance to 15 (themes, sexual references, coarse language)

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for Love, Rosie
  • a review of Love, Rosie completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 10 November 2014.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 15 Not suitable due to themes, sexual references and coarse language.
Children aged 15 Parental guidance recommended due to themes, sexual references and coarse language.
Children aged 16 and over Ok for this age group.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

Name of movie: Love, Rosie
Classification: M
Consumer advice lines: Coarse language and sexual references
Length: 103 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

Love, Rosie is a British romantic comedy, based on a novel, about two best friends, Rosie (Lily Collins) and Alex (Sam Claflin), and their journey to find true love and happiness. Having been close friends since they were five years old, the pair has long believed that it would be impossible for a romantic relationship to form between them, despite the strong feelings they both obviously have for one another. After a brief kiss that Rosie fails to recall on her 18th birthday, their lives take a turn for the worse. Alex begins to date attractive women in a quest to forget his desire for Rosie, and Rosie falls pregnant after her first sexual experience at the school dance.

When Alex gets a scholarship to study medicine at Harvard University, Rosie does not have the heart to tell him about the pregnancy and why she cannot join him. Eventually deciding to keep the baby, Rosie puts roots down in her hometown. Alex moves on with his life – he finds a beautiful partner and moves into an apartment of his own, while Rosie must give up her dream of becoming a hotel manager in order to take on the role of a hotel cleaner to support herself and her child Katie.

As their lives move on and they seem to drift further and further apart, Rosie and Alex are gradually drawn back to one another.

Themesinfo

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Relationships; Infidelity; Teenage pregnancy and single motherhood.

Use of violenceinfo

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is some violence in this movie including:

  • Rosie punches Greg when she discovers he has lied to her.

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under fiveinfo

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

  • Nothing further noted.

Product placement

  • None noted.

Sexual references

There are several sexual references in the film, including:

  • Rosie and Alex discuss an attractive student who works in the school library, with Rosie stating ‘Even I want to sleep with her’. They go on to talk about how the young woman is Alex’s ‘for the taking’, and how he is going to ‘go about seducing a woman’.
  • Alex reveals that he has lost his virginity by sending Rosie a message during class, stating ‘Virgin boy is no longer’.

Nudity and sexual activity

There is some nudity and sexual activity in the film, including:

  • On Rosie’s 18th birthday, Alex and Rosie kiss in a club. Rosie does not recall this as she is drunk.
  • Bethany dances with Alex, and then pulls him in for a passionate kiss.
  • Rosie and Greg attempt to open a condom together before having sex. He then climbs on top of her, and they briefly have sex before he exclaims ‘Sweet Jesus’. They then realise that they have lost the condom as it has fallen off inside of Rosie. Rosie calls Alex in a panic, and states aloud ‘The condom came off inside my vagina and at present I’m unable to locate it’.
  • Alex and Bethany have sex up in Alex’s bedroom, while Rosie and Alex’s younger sister listen downstairs. They hear Bethany upstairs screaming ‘Oh baby, yeah show me baby’, and eventually ‘Oh Alex, where did you learn to do that?’
  • Katie bursts into the room, and finds her mother Rosie in bed with a police officer – Rosie is handcuffed to the bed and in a nightgown.
  • Alex kisses Rosie passionately

Use of substances

There is some use of substances in this movie, including:

  • On Rosie’s 18th birthday, she becomes very drunk and kisses Alex before passing out. She does not remember this.
  • A woman in a chemist is seen smoking – she says this is fine because her parents ‘own the place’.
  • Alex drinks beer in a bar. Others around him are also drinking.

Coarse language

There is considerable use of coarse language in the film, including:

  •  ‘God, you’re so fucked up’; fuck; wanker; slag; prick; bastard; bollocks.

In a nutshell

Love, Rosie is a romantic comedy that highlights the significance of love and relationships in an individual’s life - not only romantic relationships, but those between friends and family members.  Rosie’s love for her daughter Katie is unexpectedly strong, and takes her entirely by surprise. However, the most surprising thing is the enduring love she shares for her best friend Alex. Despite crossing continents and having years pass, they still appear to be soul mates. Regardless of the success of their other relationships, none are as powerful as the bond they share with each other. The film thus speaks about taking a chance and following your heart instead of your mind.

The film is not recommended for under 15s due to sexual references and coarse language, but it has themes which could lead to useful discussions with older teenagers.

  • Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:
  • Being ambitious and wanting to do something important with your life
  • Finding the things in life that offer personal satisfaction

This movie could give parents the opportunity to discuss:

  • teenage pregnancy, and the possible options of either having a baby, having an abortion or putting the child up for adoption.  
  • the consequences of infidelity.