I can’t tell if I liked this movie because I have ovaries and I’m supposed to relish the empty frothiness of romantic comedies or because it’s just one of those goddamn feel good movies you can’t stop yourself from liking. Garry Marshall has always been adept at inflicting this sentiment on the viewing public (see Overboard, Pretty Woman, Runaway Bride, and The Princess Diaries for evidence) and I must say that I’m a little astonished no one thought to make a movie called Valentine’s Day prior to now. The profits, present and future, are going to be immeasurable (at least to someone like me who never has to worry about counting any higher than $30,000.00 dollars).

Slap some stars together and you've got yourself a movie

I think that’s why so many B-list names flocked to the project: This movie will be shown on some medium of entertainment every year on Valentine’s Day from this point forward. The royalties will be extremely satisfactory, at least enough for another plastic surgery operation or an additional wing in someone’s Beverly Hills home. The only true A-lister (as opposed to rising B-lister) in the movie is Julia Roberts, whose best scene got axed in favor of turning in into an outtake shown as the credits roll. The outtake displays, yet again, her comfortableness with being self-referential as a key source of comedic timing and tacit knowingness between her and the audience (a gimmick that first began in Ocean’s Twelve). Her stardom was almost matched by the combination of Jennifer Garner, Patrick Dempsey, Jessica Biel, Jamie Foxx, Topher Grace, Anne Hathaway, Eric Dane, Bradley Cooper, Ashton Kutcher, and Jessica Alba. And let’s not forget the Queen, Latifah.

Holden (Bradley Cooper) and Kate (Julia Roberts) share a plane ride to L.A.

The stories of the aforementioned’s characters intertwine throughout Valentine’s Day in Los Angeles, the worst possible setting for Marshall to choose if he had wanted to have any bearing on reality, but I get it, it’s easier to film in L.A. The first couple we meet is Reed (Ashton Kutcher) and Morley (Jessica Alba, who should spend less time at the hair salon/in the tanning bed and more time at acting class). Reed’s flower shop, Siena Bouquet, is the uniting force between the events of the day. For instance, it’s how Reed finds out that smooth-talking doctor Harrison Copeland (Patrick Dempsey) is married even though he’s supposed to be banging Julia (Jennifer Garner), Reed’s best friend, exclusively. P.S. Patrick, get a new role to play besides the dashing doctor. Grey’s Anatomy has to end sometime.

Julia (Jennifer Garner) is at first the only attendee of Kara's (Jessica Biel) annual I Hate Valentine's Day party

Now let me sidebar here to say that the only reason I disagreed with Kanye West’s impromptu attack of Taylor Swift in defense of Beyonce winning the Grammy is because at least Taylor Swift had spared us any attempts at acting. I rescind all sympathies to her from that night. And I think I might rescind my earlier statement about liking this movie. Because it’s wrong, just plain wrong, to like a movie with Taylor Swift in it, no matter how minor the role.

I guess this movie isn’t all that unlike the one-night stand a single person desperately searches for on Valentine’s Day: It seems alright at first glance, but when you examine it too closely, you realize the error of your ways in ever thinking it was acceptable. What Valentine’s Day seeks to confirm is that this is a “holiday” about the cursory good time of sex—not love—an assertion that is made in the film’s closing line: “Let’s get naked.” Please don’t let that include Shirley MacLaine or Hector Elizondo in your mental image.