by Haley Whitt ’15

Whoever said love is just a four letter word must have been crazy. The movie industry has long established that is far from being the case, but it is once in a generation that it is able to completely shake those fundamentals to the core and change the face of romance movies. “Titanic” did it, and I think our generation has just met ours…

On the surface, the story of an average boy saving a damsel in distress seems like standard fanfare with everlasting love being the only plausible outcome. Family disapproval is the genre’s bread and butter. It is that “forbidden love” that has drawn people to the story of “Romeo and Juliet” for centuries, and now the story is getting a facelift. With “Warm Bodies,” that quintessential story serves as the base of a fantastic love story that unites zombies and humans, a story never before attempted and seemingly odd, but leaves girls swooning and their boyfriends groaning.

In “Warm Bodies,” R (Nicholas Holt) is an illiterate, human-eating zombie, but everything changes when he lays his eyes on Julie (Teresa Palmer), a human girl whose father is a devoted zombie killer. Struck by love, R saves Julie from a zombie attack, and their love is kindled, confusing them both, as R must decide between his zombie ways and his love and Julie must decide between her love for R and her loyalty to her father.

Of the two leads, Hoult easily had the more difficult role, being a seemingly emotionless zombie that falls in love and must prove himself to this beautiful human girl. Over the course of the movie, he undergoes a number of transitions in response to the growing relationship, making the acting even more difficult. For a portion of the movie, Hoult has no dialogue, except for grunting and other bodily noises, but, even so, he expresses emotions and thoughts. To be able to portray a character wordlessly takes a great amount of skill that is not necessarily expected of such a young, relatively unknown actor. His ability to create a character that grows and does so in a way that seems natural to the audience makes the character and the love, feel even more real, the key to every great love movie.

Seeing as Julie is one of the few characters in the movie that consistently has the ability to communicate, it is frustrating that the screenplay writers forced her to incessantly and annoyingly repeat, “What are you?” rather than utilize more complex dialogue that would add to the story and allow her to better convey her emotions and carry the plot to new places. All the same, Palmer’s chemistry with Hoult is undeniable. Not unlike any love story, there are some trials and tribulations that separate the two, but it is easy for the audience to realize that the two should be brought back together at whatever costs necessary.

The dialogue could have been stronger and avoided some cliché lines, but “Warm Bodies” uniquely and cohesively combines two such different genres, horror and romance, making it a must-see.