Picture This review (2025)

Picture This is going to prove far more enjoyable to viewers who missed last year’s Five Blind Dates.

For those who did watch the 2024 film, Picture This is going to feel like deja vu…all over again. There’s certainly no shortage of rom coms that borrow elements from other films — Hallmark and Lifetime’s Christmas movie offerings seem to have the same framework and reach into a subplot grab bag to mix it up oh so slightly.

That’s not the case with Picture This, which uses Five Blind Dates’ exact same premise, the rollout of characters and payoffs to the various subplots. Even just mixing up the order of the subplots would have freshened it up a bit.

What ultimately saves Picture This is its star, Simone Ashley. Ashley was the breakout performer in Bridgerton’s second season, and she brings that same effervescent presence to this rom com. She’s engaging enough to stick with the film even if the story beats feel far too familiar.

Ashley plays Pia, a photographer, who runs a portrait studio with her gay best friend, Jay (Luke Fetherston). The studio is struggling, but Pia resists the urge to offer passport photos despite the occasional potential customer walking in with hopes of getting a quick snap. Five Blind Dates had a stronger subplot here as the lead refused to sell takeout tea even though there is a clear customer demand for that in addition to her slow-brewed tea.

Pia’s younger sister, Sonal (Anoushka Chadha), is thrilled to begin preparations for her wedding. Pia isn’t as big on the idea of marriage as it would prevent her from furthering her career.

Essentially tweaking the Five Blind Dates script from Shuang Hu and Nathan Ramos-Park, screenwriter Nikita Lalwani needed to make a stronger case that Pia actually has a career and is doing something that a marriage would somehow hinder. At least in Pia’s mind as she’s not necessarily doing anything at the studio that would suggest she couldn’t juggle both running a business and being married.

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At one of the engagement parties, Pia’s mother, Laxmi (Sindhu Vee), brings out a fortune teller who tells Pia within her next five dates she will meet her husband. The skeptical Pia agrees to play along largely to keep the peace with her divorced parents (Vee and Adil Ray). Since Pia doesn’t have any prospects on her own, the family each opts to find a suitable suitor for her on their own.

The dates should be the point where Picture This shines on the comedy front, but Lalwani opts for silly scenarios with clearly poor matches. Those scenarios could have been funny if the dates were written like real people instead of joke caricatures. Director Prarthana Mohan happily leans into the goofiness like a suitor (Asim Chaudry) who insists that Pia not use his bathroom. Naturally, this results in her flooding it and the date standing under the toilet water dripping down on him.

Their failures are a foregone conclusion as Pia’s last true love, Charlie (Hero Fiennes Tiffin), is also part of the wedding party as the best man. Thankfully, Ashley and Tiffin have decent chemistry, so the inevitable payoff doesn’t lead to a poor payoff for the investment. Most of the best scenes in the film feature Simone with Chadha and Vee as the family scenes tend to have the most heart and authentic moments.

Through the film’s shakiness, Ashley salvages some shaky scenes and elevates decent scenes to a higher level. Ashley has a genuine leading presence. She doesn’t need to take up a residency on the Hallmark/Lifetime circuit anytime soon but could have a very solid career headlining Netflix and Amazon rom coms. Picture This won’t win any prizes for originality, but Ashley keeps it worth watching.

Rating: 5 out of 10

Photo Credit: Amazon Studios

Check out Picture This on Amazon Prime.

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