Love Happens

Love Happens is a 2009 American romantic drama film written by Mike Thompson and Brandon Camp, and directed by Brandon Camp. Starring Aaron Eckhart and Jennifer Aniston. It was released on September 18, 2009.

Plot
Burke Ryan (Aaron Eckhart), is a successful Ph.D. and author of a self-help book that gives advice about dealing with the loss of a loved one. He writes the book after his wife dies in a car accident as a way to deal with the grief. While giving a workshop in Seattle, where his wife was from, he meets Eloise (Jennifer Aniston), a creative floral designer who owns her own flower-shop. She spurns his initial advance as her past relationships with men have not gone well, but after a heated exchange in the men's restroom, she meets him for dinner. Even though the dinner is awkward, they begin spending time together although she insists to her mother and her employee Marty (Judy Greer) that they are not "dating". It seems, however, that Burke has not been following his own advice, and in fact has not been dealing with the loss of his wife. In the end, he confesses to an audience that he was driving the car, and not his wife, as he previously maintained. Due to this, he blames himself for her death. Eloise, along with his wife's father (Martin Sheen), help Burke move past his wife's death. Burke goes to Eloise, telling her that she had spent the last few days getting to know the part of him that was not available and wondered was she interested in getting to know the part of him that was available.

Cast

 * Aaron Eckhart as Burke Ryan, PhD, a widowed self-help author and therapist who holds grief seminars around the country
 * Jennifer Aniston as Eloise, a florist and the woman that Burke begins dating
 * Frances Conroy as Eloise's mother
 * Martin Sheen as Burke's father-in-law
 * Judy Greer as Marty, Eloise's employee and friend
 * Dan Fogler as Lane "Goddamn" Marshall, Burke's manager
 * Joe Anderson as Tyler, Eloise's musician boyfriend, who she breaks up with over his cheating
 * John Carroll Lynch as Walter, a reluctant seminar attendee who lost his son
 * Darla Vandenbossche as Beehive
 * Panou as Unicom Executive #3, a Unicom Exec

Soundtrack
Additional music by:

Production
During development, the film was known as Brand New Day and Traveling.

The film takes place in Seattle, Washington, and was filmed in Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia.

On September 15, 2009, a lawsuit was filed by two writers claiming that the film's premise was stolen from them, seeking an injunction against its release or to be awarded the film's future profits, estimated at $100,000,000.

Reception
Rotten Tomatoes reported that 16% of critics gave positive reviews based on 106 reviews with a score of 3.8/10. Another review aggretator, Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating from reviews of mainstream critics, gave the film a "generally unfavorable" score of 33% based on 25 reviews.

On its opening weekend, the film opened at #4 behind I Can Do Bad All By Myself, The Informant!, and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs respectively with $8,057,010.

Home media
Love Happens was released on DVD & Blu-ray on February 2, 2010. It grossed $7,721,633 in US DVD sales.