Love in the Villa, 2022.
Written and Directed by Mark Steven Johnson.
Starring Kat Graham, Tom Hopper, Laura Hopper, Raymond Ablack, Hélène Cardona, and Peter Arpesella.
SYNOPSIS:
After a breakup, a young woman takes a trip to romantic Verona, Italy, only to find that the villa she reserved was double-booked, and she’ll have to share her vacation with a cynical British man.
The romantic environment of Verona, Italy, becomes a playground for an enemies-to-lovers affair in Love in the Villa (coming from writer and director Mark Steven Johnson, a name that might not ring any bells but is responsible for the infamously bad film adaptation of Daredevil). And just about the only upside here is that the film was shot on location, which makes the hopelessly romantic cheesiness of it all somewhat tolerable.
If you’re going to utilize every genre cliché in the playbook, you might as well do it where William Shakespeare’s famous play Romeo and Juliet was set, complete with statues of Juliet and a villa with a perfect view of the spot Romeo called out to her in the night.
That’s one way of saying that if the characters were moderately likable, Love in the Villa would succeed at sweeping viewers up in something so shamelessly and unabashedly romantic. However, when one of your protagonists is insistent that they “never make a mistake,” it doesn’t exactly instill good faith for the remaining 90 minutes of this bloated endeavor (there are a few subplots that could drastically be cut down here).
Kat Graham’s Julie (yes, that’s how on the nose the material is) is an elementary school teacher prepared to embark on the destination vacation of her dreams with her longtime boyfriend, Brandon (Raymond Ablack). However, during a fancy dinner date with Julie going over a strict itinerary for the trip (one of the only amusing jokes is that she has allocated a percentage of the pie chart for spontaneity), Brandon fesses up that he doesn’t think the relationship is working. It’s also hard to blame him for feeling that way, given Julie’s self-centered attitude that persists throughout the film (at least until the script decides it’s time for her to be more rational and levelheaded without much of a character arc).
As a whole, that’s one of the significant problems with Love in the Villa (a flawed movie that is definitely not “flawesome”); it can’t decide what it wants to be. Once Julie arrives in Verona by herself (with the assistance of the world’s most insane Uber driver making for some embarrassing comedy), she finds that her room has been double booked. Inside is the shirtless Charlie (Tom Hopper), a wine consultant traveling on business, who chooses to stay in that room every year despite not believing in love. It’s evident that Charlie is hiding his soft side and is a romantic deep down, which is a fine logical starting point for the character considering the setting.
Julie and Charlie immediately come across as self-absorbed, fighting over who has the room for the week. This incites a war between them that is consistently cruel on both sides rather than harmless shenanigans allowing viewers to actually like one of these characters. She exploits his allergies to cats; he has her missing luggage donated to charity and invades her diary.
Those are just a few examples, but none of this comes across as funny or convincing that these people were not the problems in their respective relationships or deserving of love. As such, by the time these two find common ground and realize they do like one another, the film has already dug its grave. Eventually, some more characters are introduced (somehow even more grating), we move through unnecessary subplots, and the story arrives at its predictably yet fitting conclusion.
Hopefully, everyone involved in making Love in the Villa had a nice vacation because functioning as a tourist attraction for Verona is the only level the movie works on.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
