Predictable plot, obvious romantic comedy, negligible dialogues and happy endings and a couple of actors that do not spark. Despite this, Travel Guide to Falling in Love, Rachel Leigh Cook’s starring comeback, the unforgettable star of Kiss Me in the 2000s, is in the top 10 on Netflix. Does the algorithm generate sure success?
We said it, short and reiterated, the romantic comedy at the cinema but above all on the platforms it now follows unwritten rules that guarantee a path of safety and partial success. However, it is known that too much cripples and the result can be the boring repetition of something already seen, to the nth degree. One could answer that the predictability of a rom-com is a predictable factor, to put it with a pun. Right, let’s answer, it doesn’t matter that at minute 1 of a film or even from the trailer it is already understood how we will get from point A to point B but that the journey is as enjoyable and intense as possible. But how true is this reflection in the light of the invincible “maybe”. algorithm on Netflix?
Travel guide to fall in love (here you can read our review) sees the return of the star of the 2000s by Kiss Me, Rachael Leigh Cook and it is the perfect example to analyze the situation and try to answer the question about the alleged successful safety of the mechanism. The film in question fails to avoid clichés in any way but continues to stumble into them. It almost seems that the already mentioned algorithm, criticized so much in recent days, even by Nanni Moretti, is a real trap into which both the director Steven K. Tsuchida and the producers, the actors Joel S. Rice and the Leigh Cook herself. A trap for those who chew cinema, a trap for cinephiles or demanding spectators, but perhaps instead a tempting cover by Linus for those who instead want comfort and a happy ending without effort from a film?
Travel guide to fall in love, the plot of the Netflix movie
Back to the story: Amanda Riley is a travel company bigwig who, with her partner Mona (Missi Pyle), is trying to acquire a new and very successful Vietnamese tour operator. Driven by her unexpected breakup with her boyfriend John (Ben Feldman) that after 5 years has preferred to accept a job offer in Ohio rather than stay in Los Angeles and marry her, Amanda decides to combine business with pleasure and go incognito on the much-vaunted tour of Vietnam to test the waters before the sale. Upon arrival, she meets the soul of the journey, Sinh (Scott Ly), a guide to the “true” discovery of the country and immediately probable love interest and exotic diversion. You begin the interactive visit-route to unusual places, not visited by tourists with the idea, that of the Vietnamese company and of course Sinh, that you have to behave like travelers and not like tourists, not “to run away from one’s life but to want to experience it”. As the trailer also states, not only can we glimpse love between Sinh and Amanda but also the ex who has reconsidered so that the love triangle component is added to the list. As was pointed out in the review of the film, if we were talking about cinema in theaters, we would say that Eat, Pray, Love meets French Kiss but in the language of the platforms, Travel guide to fall in love it is much more, alas, inside the flood of similar films available on Netflix such as A safari for Christmas with Kristin Davis or Love in the Villa – Falling in love in Verona. This is therefore precisely the center of the problem or of the appeal.
The movie of Steven K. Tsuchida it is exactly the same as the others, it will almost certainly be seen, overlooked, exploited and then abandoned without leaving a trace of itself. Judging by the top 10 most viewed, math Netflix it almost always works in the short run, otherwise the success of Romantic guide to falling in love between films and the hated (by our editorial staff) Pálpito between TV series it would not be explained. Having taken note of this effective but fragile functioning, in our opinion, we evaluate that the task of a film critic and a film magazine is also to guide the spectator (yes, even those who like to take refuge in safe havens like a romantic comedy) towards the quality clichés, the predictable worth pursuing. If you fall prey to the appeal of the algorithm, you have to do it consciously and in the next points we will help you, analyzing in detail some elements of Tourist Guide to fall in love, to choose more carefully for future visions.
The representation of the woman
So busy showing bright female characters in terms of economic realization, in this case with an impeccable protagonist in the workplace, woe to show a situation of disparity in that area, Tourist guide to fall in love encounters more than one flaw when it has to outline Amanda’s private life: a profile of a woman who at over 40 is only apparently serene with her choice to focus on her career and on a stable but pragmatic relationship. At the first mention of a ring and a possible proposal, here she is throwing everything away and thinking only of where to go on her honeymoon. From cliché to cliché then the confrontation-falling in love between the woman and the beautiful tour guide moves forward. Sinh is king of mansplaining about how to live life free from lists, organization, fears and she stands there welcoming every aphorism-lesson like an epiphany. You will witness obnoxious exchanges like the following: “You always underestimate yourself” le dice Born. “I know my limits” replies Amanda, to which he counters with the obvious “then don’t limit yourself”. A bit like telling a person with a panic attack not to be afraid or not to think about it. The beauty is that our Amanda builds us a falling in love with this continuous exchange with Sinh. We also don’t want to dwell on the other lessons against Amanda’s organizational rigidities that Sinh imparts. You already understood.
The cathartic journey
Not to drown in the sea of the algorithm, there is, luckily for us, a country, the Vietnam, which doesn’t seem entirely to wallow in stereotypes, on the contrary, there are approaches and glimpses of places and ways of life that make the journey of the film much, much more bearable. Amanda is truly mesmerized by the sight of the places she is visiting and the customs she is acquiring and if the vision of Travel guide to fall in love it can be said that it served a purpose, it will certainly make the desire to go to Vietnam grow, eat fruits with strange smells and discover hidden temples. Despite the lack of credibility of Amanda’s inner journey in finding herself, the film still manages to remind us of the value and usefulness of taking a break from ourselves, the place we live in, our routine or, to quote Sinh, our comfort zones.
At least give us the chemistry
Rom-coms, especially the ones we find on platforms, don’t necessarily have to be the new Harry, meet Sally but for many, as we have verified despite ourselves, they are perceived and seen as a guilty pleasure, the pleasant film, which requires very little energy and minimal attention precisely to the now well-known predictability factor. What makes the difference? The chemistry between the characters, the condition whereby we don’t say we should constantly want to be in the shoes of one of the protagonists of the love story but at least we should be able to believe in the involvement and attraction between the two. Amanda and Sinh politely like each other, they praise each other with their eyes but their body language abstains, as if it were inappropriate. We have to wait until we have reached an exact hour of film to finally see the two at least look at each other with desire as well as admiration. We bitterly note that this moment is elusive and everything returns to superficiality. The screenwriter Eirene Tran Donohue she didn’t even bother to make Sinh’s character a little more mysterious or at least to be discovered. The boy, on the other hand, is an open book, indeed, to make things easier and justify his perfect English, they created the excuse of a university in the USA. Rachel Leigh Cook, as an actress and producer must do more to make us return to the nostalgic and romantic atmospheres of Kiss Me.
