Just as a generation of Americans defined itself in relation to the war in Vietnam, the middle-aged VH1 types in Argentinean director Eliseo Subiela's Wake Up, Love reflect on the youthful ideals that gave them purpose under the rule of an oppressive military dictatorship. But as in The Big Chill and other mediocre films of its ilk, the past just provides an excuse for pop songs and gauzy nostalgia, with nothing but a few cheap cultural signifiers as a reminder that the '60s happened at all. While deeply personal and steeped in a mood of bittersweet regret, Wake Up, Love has little emotional resonance and makes nothing of the obvious irony that this awful period in Argentina's history was actually the best time of its characters' lives. A reunion of a group of radicals who haven't seen each other in several decades triggers a midlife crisis for Darío Grandinetti, a Buenos Aires journalist who's shocked to discover that his first love, Soledad Silveyra, wound up marrying his old friend Juan Leyrado. Thoughts of what might have been haunt the former couple, whose adolescent happiness—shown in frequently over-the-top flashbacks—has long since faded into a lonely, unfulfilling adulthood. Grandinetti lucks into meeting a sensitive, beautiful Cuban cellist, but Silveyra's sadness intensifies when she realizes how much she's sacrificed for a marriage that has brought her little satisfaction. Wake Up, Love has all the elements of a forceful melodrama but none of the conviction, despite Subiela's obvious connection to the material. His biggest mistake is in trivializing the political turmoil so central to his characters' formative years, pushing their bland relationships to the fore while forgetting the events that sparked their activism and shaped who they are. By downplaying the past, Wake Up, Love becomes as vague and blandly anonymous as the Elvis Presley covers that litter its soundtrack.