Peter Chelsom

Set against the vivid backdrop of the German capital, Berlin, I Love You weaves ten stories of compassion, redemption, and acceptance into a rich tapestry of life and love.

Raised by scientists in Mars, a young man returns to Earth to find his father.

John Clark (Richard Gere) is a lawyer with a charming wife Beverly (Susan Sarandon) and loving family with kids Jenna (Tamara Hope) and Evan (Stark Sands), who nevertheless feels that something is missing as he makes his way every day through the city. John takes the L train to work, where he helps clients decide how to distribute their assets in the event of their death. To John, every life can be summed up on a piece of paper with assets and liabilities, and that is a very depressing thought to him. John is so into his thoughts about the meaning of life, that he cannot even tell his wife what he wants as a gift for his own birthday. John feels very lonely as all members of his house are completely engrossed in their own lives and do not have time for him. Each evening on his commute home through Chicago, John sees a beautiful woman staring with a lost expression through the window of a dance studio. Haunted by her gaze, John impulsively jumps off the train one night, and signs up for ballroom dancing lessons, hoping to meet her. As John enters the dance studio, he is greeted by Paulina, who registers him as a single student, with classes at $45 per hour, which drops to $40 per hour, if a 8 class package is chosen. John is signed up for a group that meets every Wednesday at 7:30 PM for 8 weeks. At first, it seems like a mistake. His teacher turns out to be not Paulina (Jennifer Lopez), but the older Miss Mitzi (Anita Gillette), and John proves to be just as clumsy as his equally clueless classmates Chic (Bobby Cannavale) and Vern (Omar Miller) on the dance-floor. Chich admits that he has come to the dance studio to pick up dates. The guys were supposed to be paired with women who had also signed up for the same class, but the women leave after taking one look at the 3 guys. This leaves the men alone with Mitzi. Mitzi ends up using may props on the dance floor to teach the basics of ballroom dancing to the 3 men. Meanwhile Paulina practices her routine with her partner Francesco in a different room at the studio. Vern reveals that he is soon getting married and he took up ballroom dancing to surprise his fiance and also to lose 3 pounds. Bobbie is the only female at the studio, who comes in as Mitzi allows her to practice anytime she wants. Bobbie tells the guys that all the women attend a competitor dance studio, which is considered hip and more glamorous. Bobbie aims to compete at Chicago's biggest ballroom dancing competition and is looking for a partner. Bobbie tells the guys that Paulina competed and lost at Black Pool, an England dance competition that attracts the best dancers from all over the world. She competed with her partner and lover, who ended up dumping her. Thats when Paulina felt lost and came back to the US and became a teacher with Mitzi. As the classes progress, John finds himself attracted to the mysterious Paulina. This also means that John is late coming home once every week. Jenna notes that John seems happier than usual and points it out to Beverly. Beverly finds that her colleague's husband is having an affair and suspects that John is having one too. Even worse, when John does meet Paulina, she icily tells John she hopes he has come to the studio to seriously study dance and not to look for a date. John finds that his office colleague Link has also joined the dance class. At office, Link is bald and boring and yet he is an expert at Latin dances and has long luscious hair (on account of a wig) at the dance class. Link says that he is passionate about dancing and was mistaken for being gay all his life. Link says that his dream is to be able to dance under his own name for the whole world to see. But, as his lessons continue, John falls in love with dancing. Keeping his new obsession from his family and co-workers, John feverishly trains for Chicago's biggest dance competition. His friendship with Paulina blossoms, as his enthusiasm rekindles her own lost passion for dance. But the more time John spends away from home, the more his wife Beverly becomes suspicious. She hires a private investigator to find out what John is doing, but when she finds out the truth, she chooses to discontinue the investigation and not invade her husband's privacy. John is partnered with Bobbie (Lisa Ann Walter) for the competition, although his friend Link (Stanley Tucci) steps in to do the Latin dances. Link and Bobbie do well in the Latin dances, and while John and Bobbie's waltz goes well, John hears his wife and daughter in the crowd during the quickstep, and is distracted by trying to find them. He and Bobbie fall and are disqualified, and John and Beverly argue in the parking structure. John quits dancing, to everyone's dismay. Paulina, having been inspired by John to take up competing again, is leaving to go to Europe, and is having a going-away party at the dance studio. She sends John an invitation, but he's not convinced to go until his wife leaves out a pair of dancing shoes that she bought him. He goes and meets Beverly at work, convinces her that while he loves dancing, he still loves her just as much, and they dance. They go to the party and John and Paulina have one last dance before she leaves. The end scene shows everyone afterwards: Link and Bobbie are now together. Chic, who was actually gay, dances at a club with his partner. Miss Mitzi finds a new partner, and they are happy together. John and Beverly are back to normal and dance in the kitchen. Vern, newly married to his fiance, dances with her at their wedding. The private investigator that Beverly hired, Devine (Richard Jenkins), starts up dance lessons and Paulina, with a new partner, competes at Blackpool, the competition that she had lost years before.

During the Christmas shopping season in New York City, Jonathan Trager (John Cusack) meets Sara Thomas (Kate Beckinsale) as they both try to buy the same pair of black cashmere gloves at Bloomingdale's. They feel a mutual attraction, and despite the fact that each is involved in other relationships, they end up eating ice cream at Serendipity together, and soon exchange goodbyes. However, both realize that they have left something at the ice cream bar and return only to find each other again. Considering this to be a stroke of fate, Jonathan and Sara decide to go out on the town together, and ice skate on the Wollman Rink at Central Park. Jonathan teaches Sara about Cassiopeia, saying that the freckles on Sara's arm match the pattern of the Cassiopeia constellation. At the end of the night, the smitten Jonathan suggests an exchange of phone numbers. Sara writes hers down, but it flies away with the wind. Wanting fate to work things out, Sara asks Jonathan to write his name and phone number on a $5 bill, while she writes her name and number on the inside cover of a copy of Love in the Time of Cholera. If they are meant to be together, he will find the book and she will find the $5 bill, and they will find their way back to each other. Jonathan is not satisfied with this, so they go into a hotel with 28 floors and enter into different elevators to see if they both choose the same floor. They each take a single glove from the pair they purchased. They both press floor 23, but a child gets on the elevator with Jonathan and presses all the buttons, so it is too late by the time he reaches floor 23. The two believe they've lost each other forever. Several years later, Jonathan is at an engagement party with his fiance Halley Buchanan (Bridget Moynahan). On the same day, Sara comes home to her house to find Lars Hammond (John Corbett), a famous musician, proposing to her. As their wedding dates approach, each find themselves with a case of cold feet, and decide to return to New York in an attempt to find each other again. Jonathan and his best friend Dean Kansky (Jeremy Piven) return to Bloomingdale's in an attempt to find Sara. They meet the same salesman (Eugene Levy) and eventually end up with only an address. They meet a painter who recalls that she lived there for a short time after being referred by a placement company, which he identifies as being located in a shop next to Serendipity. Jonathan and Dean follow the lead to find that the agency has moved, and its former location is now a bridal shop. Jonathan takes this as a sign that he is supposed to stop looking for Sara and get married to Halley. Sara takes her best friend Eve (Molly Shannon) with her to New York, where she visits the locations of her date, hoping that fate will bring back Jonathan. At the Waldorf Astoria, Eve bumps into an old friend--Halley--who is there to get married the next day. Halley invites Eve and Sara to the wedding without anyone realizing the groom is Jonathan. Failing in their search, Sara and Eve console themselves with a coffee at Serendipity. Eve is handed the $5 bill as change. The day before the big event, Halley hands Jonathan a copy of Love in the Time of Cholera as a gift, having noticed him picking up the book every time they're in a bookstore. It is the copy that Sara had written in, and he immediately sets off to find her. He sees people in her house being intimate, when it's actually Sara's sister and her boyfriend. Jonathan then comes back home for the wedding. Sara decides not to attend the wedding and starts to return home. She goes to the Waldorf to retrieve her belongings, where she finds Lars, who followed her to New York. While with Lars, she sees Cassiopeia in the sky, and breaks her engagement with him. On the plane the next day, Sara finds that her wallet got exchanged with Eve's. She realizes she has the same $5 bill which Jonathan wrote on several years earlier and gets off the plane to search for him. His neighbors tell her he's getting married the same day. She rushes to the hotel, only to see a man, apparently cleaning up at the end of the ceremony. She is in tears until the man says the wedding was called off. Sara later remembers the jacket she left in the park. Jonathan is wandering around Central Park. He finds Sara's jacket and uses it as a pillow to lie down. As the first snowflake drops, he sees Sara. They introduce themselves to each other formally for the first time. The film concludes with Sara and Jonathan at Bloomingdale's, enjoying champagne on their anniversary at the same spot where they first met.

Kevin suffers from a Morquio's syndrome, which weakens his heart and stunts his growth. Maxwell has dyslexia and towers above his classmates. The two couldn't be more different, but, when Kevin is asked to help Maxwell, they soon bond. This tells the story of a strong friendship between a young boy with Morquio's syndrome and an older boy who is always bullied because of his size. Adapted from the novel, Freak the Mighty, the film explores a building of trust and friendship. Kevin, an intelligent guy helps out Maxwell to improve his reading skills. In return, Kevin wants Maxwell to take him out places since he is not allowed out unauthorized. Being the social outcasts of the town, Kevin and Maxwell come to realize that they are similar to each other and accept that they are "freaks" and nothing will stop them. —Thorpe89 This is the heart-warming story of a unique friendship shared by two seventh grade boys, Kevin and Max. Kevin, afflicted with a rare physical disability that prevents him from living a normal childhood, is an extremely intelligent boy who lives in the world of his imagination. Max on the other hand, is an over-weight boy who suffers from a learning disability and has failed the seventh grade several times. Fate brings the boys together when Kevin is assigned to tutor Max in his reading skills; here their magical journey begins. These two boys, who appear on the surface to have nothing in common, find they share many painful realities of being outcasts, and of being abandoned by their fathers early in life. Kevin's enchanting world of knights and their quest for justice is brought into reality through his exciting journey with Max. Through their adventures, they find a friendship providing completeness of self and an unbreakable bond of love. —Chris