Love in the Villa review
Love in the Villa has a good romantic comedy buried somewhere in its throw every rom com cliche at the wall and see what sticks approach. If love isn’t a sprint, but a marathon, Love in the Villa is a grueling decathlon with no finish line in sight.
Kat Graham (Operation Christmas Drop) is Julie, a minute-by-minute planner. This helps in her career as a third grade teacher, but isn’t all that useful when it comes to obsessively calculating how every moment will be spent on her long-awaited vacation to Verona. Her boyfriend, Brandon (Raymond Ablack) isn’t loving that idea and vaguely calls for a break.
A little bummed out, but hardly that bothered that her boyfriend of four years ditches her, Julie hops on a plane to spend a week at a romantic villa. She’s shocked to find a half-naked Charlie (Tom Hopper, Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City) claiming he’s booked the villa for the exact same time. It’s another wacky double-booking premise.
Director/Writer Mark Steven Johnson takes a different approach from how this rom com plot typically plays out. Despite Charlie taking pity on her and allowing her to share the space with him, Julie starts carrying out some mean-spirited pranks in hopes that he’ll cut his vacay short.
Even in the genre’s casual disregard for genuine human emotion, this seems excessive. And it makes Julie come off needlessly unlikable.
Charlie’s game for this villa war as well, which escalates to increasingly less plausible and silly scenarios. Johnson lets this play out for an hour before seemingly getting bored and switching over to another rom com entirely.
This feels more like how the film should have started with Julie getting Charlie out of his stuffy shell and appreciating the beauty of Verona. Charlie only comes to the villa to get away where he can sample wines from various vineyards for his job.
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Graham has an inviting personality and she’s a natural for the rom com setting. Hopper is game and handles his role well though he and Graham don’t have the kind of chemistry that suggests their characters would be a couple outside of the script.
Johnson casually sidesteps plot holes of his own creation like why Charlie would go to a villa overrun with stray cats when he’s hyperallergic. Or why the low-key Julie suddenly starts buying a wardrobe that looks like it would put a significant dent in her teacher’s salary.
Naturally, a big attraction for the film is the gorgeous scenery. Johnson showcases the breathtaking sunsets, illuminated streets at night and stellar views well enough to make the easy sell that a trip to Verona should be added to viewer’s bucket lists.
Lest the film gets too predictable, Johnson throws in another wrench with Charlie’s ex, Cassie (Hopper’s wife Laura Hopper, The Umbrella Academy) and Brandon popping up. These arrivals seem too late. Johnson seemed to miss the window to introduce more eccentric, memorable characters earlier on in the film.
There’s a reason most rom coms aren’t two hours and it’s mainly because the formula is ideally suited for a brisk 90-minutes. With every shift in approaches, it felt like Johnson reset the counter back to 00:00. It almost comes off like watching Johnson’s three different ideas for how to tackle this film.
Love in the Villa eventually feels like a guest that overstays its welcome. Johnson tries to do something different, but this was a film that just needed the standard, predictable formula to work.
Rating: 5 out of 10
Photo Credit: Netflix