Netflix keeps flogging the room’s dead elephant, in this instance the Hollywood romantic comedy in the Hallmark mold, with the gratingly average Love in the Villa. Who will inform them, anyway? Who will save Europe from the grips of naive American tourists? These movies have a problem in that they aren’t even ironic or self-aware. They make an effort to be snackable and unimaginative. There are performances there that try to be unoriginal and forgettable. They aim to resemble travel advertisements that are just a little bit longer. They genuinely unfold like clumsy, cloying live-action adaptations of fictional Disney cartoons.
the Villa and love. On the eve of her ideal vacation to far-off Verona, an unrepentant “Romeo, and Juliet” fan named (obviously) Julie is rejected. Yet, she goes alone, finds a double-booked villa, and falls in love with the bothersome but stunningly handsome British man sharing that property. Observe the tropes: The music includes Italian renditions of English pop hits, the two snobby significant others appear to win them back, the two begin arguing as Tom and Jerry rivals until warming to one another, and all the Italians in the movie are made to sound like simpletons due to their poor English.
For a sizzling second, I was reminded of the 2015 Hindi film Queen, starring Kangana Ranaut, which depicted a far more progressive tale of a woman discovering herself after embarking on a solo honeymoon to Paris and Amsterdam. Lone individuals and individuality are not favorites of writer-director Mark Steven Johnson. I anticipated that Julie would learn that romance is a tourist trap in Verona, the city that epitomizes love when she is first dumped. That’s subversion right there. But since Julie lacks an alphabet, the only twist is that she finds a super-fit man who cooks for her. She is defined by love. Without it, we have no notion of who she is. If it weren’t for it, she had no right to exist.
Even the actors (Kat Graham and Tom Hopper), who play them, are uneasy throughout the early scenes as they both try to get rid of each other by using childish antics. In any other universe, what they do would be abhorrent. While Charlie (his name, by the way) is sleeping, Julie transforms him into catnip. Pages from Julie’s private journal are scrawled on Juliet’s wall below the famed balcony by Charlie. He has the airline send back Julie’s bags and persuades them to sell her clothing to orphans, allowing Julie to look like an Italian model for the remainder of the movie. Additionally, he gives her horse flesh, which leads to her getting him imprisoned, almost ruining his career. These are not amusing jokes.
Despite how charming it may seem, this is not a movie for kids. The tone and tempo are off. There is no wit present, and the fun appears manufactured. More chemistry exists between the Veronese sculptures and the bees than between the two leads. The characters lack the individuality that the cobblestones do. When both of their ex-partners arrive, they act in such a way that it makes Julie and Charlie seem bad for ever being with them. I understand that lightheartedness is a thing in contemporary romances; in fact, even some reviewers have begun to applaud the comeback of clumsy and amiable love stories disguised as nostalgia. However, Love in the Villa is so vaporous that it vanishes into nothing. It is the final straw when Julie takes a flight on the airline Amore to Italy. This happens six minutes into the two-hour movie, which is unfortunate.
