Aloha takes a welcome turn off Tinseltown's wide road

Hollywood has no reason not to give people what they covet. “Nobody wants to be where they are,” reflects Brian Gilcrest (Bradley Cooper) in Aloha. “They all want to live in a fantasy.” That’s why, for the price of admission, many Tinseltown rom-com-drams, like Aloha, provide vicarious “thrills”—watching beautiful people flout moral boundaries. Writer-director Cameron Crowe seems to pilot his latest film toward the same dead end when he veers off course.

Billionaire Carson Welch (Bill Murray) hires Brian as a consultant for a project to launch a communications satellite in Hawaii. Brian liaises with the U.S. Air Force, makes nice with native Hawaiians who oppose the project, and oversees the project’s software security. The Air Force assigns F-22 fighter pilot Capt. Allison Ng (Emma Stone) to “babysit” Brian while he’s on the islands. And on the Air Force base reside Brian’s former flame, Tracy Woodside (Rachel McAdams), her husband Woody (John Krasinski), and their two middle-school aged children.

Depending on viewers’ tolerance for distractions, the film’s flaw may be that Crowe tries to tell multiple stories with near equal vigor. A thread about indigenous peoples’ rights and spirit folklore seems to hang loose. And it takes most of the movie to unravel the machinations surrounding the satellite launch.

But perhaps Crowe is crazy like a fox. The tangled backstory squares with the tumultuous love triangles that shape the plot. Allison and Brian can’t resist each other in spite of their conflicting personalities. More than a dozen years’ separation has not cooled the fire between Tracy and Brian, who nearly married. And Brian’s arrival propels Tracy and Woody’s marriage, already sputtering, into a steep nosedive.

Aloha (rated PG-13 for some language, including suggestive comments) may not rank among Crowe’s best works (Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Say Anything, Jerry Maguire). Still, accepting as purposive the film’s seemingly haphazard unfolding, and overlooking a few implausible events (such as the Woodsides’ young son videotaping a secretive movement of military equipment) on which the plot hinges, Crowe successfully builds a great deal of tension by redirecting the drama away from the rocky romances to the family unit hanging in the balance. While Allison and Brian do have one off-screen sexual encounter, Tracy and Brian approach that same precipice but (spoiler—if you can call it that—alert) back away for all the right reasons.

In a somewhat turbulent way, Aloha affirms marital fidelity and acknowledges the importance of fatherhood. Too bad the family friendly ending may disappoint some vicarious thrill-seekers.