Midnight at the Paradise (2022)

Midnight at the Paradise turns out to be profoundly shallow, but then it never said it was deep. The heroine’s father is a movie critic who “always” said, “It’s a movie. Let it be a movie.” Words to live by, as far as writer Bill Robertson and director Vanessa Matsui are concerned.   The characters...

The Idea of You (2024)

The Idea of You is a bait-and-switch. Solene (Ann Hathaway) wonders, “What if I could just be the sort of person that goes camping by herself? What if all I need is [her daughter] Izz[y], and my artists, and my gallery, and my friends?” I wish the movie had been about this self-sufficient woman.  ...

After We Collided (2020)

After We Collided tries to emulate the success of popular romance novels, but the derivative storyline makes it difficult to become invested in the film. The forced romantic tension between the two leads feels contrived and unconvincing, and the lackluster execution, overreliant on clichés and tropes from other works, detracts from its overall impact and leaves...

Branching Out (2024)

Branching Out could have been a nice little family drama, but they ruined it by putting the plot on autopilot and letting it settle into your average predictable Hallmark romance.   Amelia (Sarah Drew) is a single mother by choice. Her nine-year-old daughter Ruby (Cora Bella) is assigned, as a school project, to make a...

A Match for the Prince (2023)

A Match for the Prince is yet another modern-day fairytale with a literal Prince (not so) Charming from a European monarchy (“an enclave by Switzerland”) with a patently made-up name, but who speaks the King’s English fluently (to be fair, Prince Maximillian Lucien Adalwolf of Voldario “went to boarding school in London”).  According to Max...

Red Rover (2018)

Red Rover is as escapist as escapism gets, and I’m not even talking about the half-baked ‘let’s got to Mars’ premise. Damon Pierce (Kristian Bruun) is an ersatz Jack Black spineless pushover who lives in his ex-girlfriend's basement (where he’s subjected to the sights and sounds of her sex life) and is fired from his...

Recipe for Love (2014)

I'll give it to Recipe for Love; it briefly makes the idea of a cookbook ghostwriter sound not quite as dumb as it truly is. It helps to think of celebrity chef Dexter Durant (Shawn Roberts) as a self-taught musician who never learned to read or write music.  That's where Lauren Hennessey (Danielle Panabaker) comes...

Blind Date Book Club (2024)

Blind Date Book Club is about a girl from Nantucket, but being a Hallmark romcom, telegraphing the ending is the only thing it has in common with a dirty limerick. The leads end up together, and that’s not a spoiler — it’s a foregone conclusion.  I will give the filmmakers credit for not even pretending that the...

Música (2024)

Música purports to be “Based on a true story. Unfortunately.” Well, they got the unfortunate part right; as for the “true story” portion, if that’s true it means that the hero (co-writer/director Rudy Mancuso playing himself) is an undiagnosed paranoid schizophrenic. That is what you call someone who sees and hears things that aren’t there and...