Review: Cameron Crowe’s ‘Aloha’ Starring Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone & Rachel McAdams

Writer/director Cameron Crowe, he of “Jerry Maguire,” “Almost Famous” and the tastefully soundtracked, life-is-bittersweet-but-can-also-be-winning mien, is clearly obsessed with a feeling. Those near imperceptible and fleeting, but momentous moments of ache and longing that can only really be expressed without words. These evanescent rushes are communicated through pining glances, a crestfallen lump in the throat, the quivering bottom-lip sensation before you may laugh or cry depending on which way the wind blows in the crucial next moment. And while Crowe’s been a fine purveyor of romantic comedy poignancy with sharp and humanist insights that has helped shape a filmmaking oeuvre, his latest effort, “Aloha,” is bittersweet overkill. Familiar and unwieldy, the dramedy is one long, sustained and ultimately overwrought note of happy/sad wistfulness that loops itself into an echo of strained feedback.

Crowe is also consumed with the idea of second chances and screw-up/...