Falling Inn Love | Film Review

Hey Guys x

This is Netflix's latest rom-com offering, and I had been waiting to see it for ages just because I love a good fluffy rom-com, and this promised to be exactly that.

Gabriela Dias (Christina Milan) loses her job and her boyfriend in the space of a week, so when she enters a competition to win an inn in New Zealand, and wins, she jumps at the chance for a fresh start. But when her inn needs more work than she expected, she finds that the people around her are more than willing to lend a hand - particularly contractor Jake Taylor (Adam Demos).

I liked this movie a lot!

For a start, it takes less than a few seconds to fall in love with the character of Gabriela. She's soft enough to be strong without being intimidating to the audience. She's a comfortable, interesting person to watch, almost like watching a movie about a friend.

A great thing about the film is that it's effortlessly diverse in all facets - it was nice to see a movie set in New Zealand with a mix of white people and Maori's, as this is something that I don't feel like I ever really see, it's either one or the other, and it's rarely ever the other. But even without taking colour into the equation, there's a lot of representation.

Speaking of New Zealand, the country is a character in and of itself in this movie. The scenery is breathtaking, and the country breathes life into this story and the characters that come with it. Because the supporting cast of this film really is what makes it. Gabriela is a great character on her own, but there's no way this film would have been as good without them.

And then there's the antagonist. I really liked the antagonist of this movie because she doesn't come across as a 'villian', but rather a normal determined woman. Not all villains need to be ruthless, and not all bad people have deep rooted psychological issues that need to be hashed out. Sometimes people just don't click and that's fine.

But there's some things that I didn't like about the movie. And you might notice that, in the good section, I never mentioned anything about the couple that this movie is about.

I really enjoyed watching Gabriela and Jake fall in(n) love, and you could clearly see the progression of their relationship. But to be honest, I felt absolutely no chemistry between them, and I think this is because of Jake's character. I feel like you could have put any other man with any other personality in his place and the film would have been exactly the same. He didn't stand out to me, and he was the least interesting character to watch.

In addition to that, Gabriela is clearly only standoffish towards Jake to create tension. It's supposed to be flirty but comes across as unnecessary, especially when they could have just been friends and grew closer from that friendship.

It has enough comedy to be legitimately classed as a 'rom-com'. However, this also causes the film to suffer a bit, as it seems a lot more 'com' than 'rom'.

From the first moment, the movie is extremely cliche. But the good thing is that it seems to be self-aware about the fact that it's cliche, which really works in its favour. However, it does get a bit too cheesy in places, and in others it's just ridiculously unrealistic.

And why is it that so many rom-coms have to have the ex-boyfriend who can't take a hint and is awful from their very first appearance in the film? I'm completely over this trope now.

Overall, a fluffy film that's more feel-good than it is romantic.

6/10

Lou