If the pun in this film's title isn't enough to tell you everything you need to know about its quality, then maybe the fact that it's a Netflix original will help too. Roger Kumble's romantic comedy Falling Inn Love is not even a movie to me. It may sound disheartening to hear that an addition to this tired genre is (shockingly!) not great, but it's difficult for me to even see where a filmmaker's passion would lie when creating a story like this. This is not a movie; this is a cheaply put-together attempt at fun storytelling that Netflix probably funded with whatever they had left from the new season of Stranger Things. However generic this film may have been, though, there is no denying that it does its job. Put together plot point X with basic character model Y and any studio can squeeze out some romantic emotion from their audiences. Falling Inn Love is not inherently bad by any means, in fact it's quite harmless, but I only see this as yet another meager plea for viewership from Netflix.
Gabriela (Christina Milian) is your typical city girl living in San Francisco and has big plans in the nameless company that she works for. When the business suddenly goes under and she breaks up with her longtime boyfriend, she consoles herself by entering a contest to win a free bed-and-breakfast in New Zealand (your typical grieving process). When she finds out that she won, she moves there in hopes of making some quick cash but ends up falling in love with the country itself and a handsome contractor named Jake (Adam Demos). Looking back at how this film was written, I honestly think that Netflix worked backward in terms of their pre-production. I actually believe that they stumbled upon a raggedy-looking building in the heart of Kiwi country and decided to write a film around that; encapsulating every possible cliché that they could, instead of doing the location scouting once the film was actually written, as the normal process would go. The unnatural amount of shots showing off this location that they secured seems to vastly overshadow any achievement in the script, which might have been the point. Despite the locale of this film looking beautiful, the writing is (hot take) not good at all: in fact, very, very bad. Every plot point of this film, every line of dialogue, and every attemped character trait that was given are just uninspired, recycled pieces of writing that audiences have seen God knows how many times. Throw in the comedy relief best friend characters, the archetypal gay couple running a coffee shop, and a goofy goat named Gilbert, and you've got a recipe for mediocrity.
The one element that managed to stand out to me and mildly impress me was that this film was written by two women, Elizabeth Hackett and Hilary Galanoy, which makes sense given the equality of characters regardless of gender and sexuality. I'm not surprised that this film was written by these two, however, as it has become rightfully commonplace for a studio to hire people who actually understand what it is like being a woman. This was pleasant, but does not change the fact that every trope available was brought into this script like they were being forced to write it by the original content overlords (Gabriela's boss was literally named Chad). Nothing irritates me more in a film than when I can't even feel a sense of passion. Regardless of whether or not I agree with what message the director is trying to say, at least some movies have a touch of dedication. Roger Kumble's direction was bland, as was every other element of this film from the performances to the production value. Dave Garbett's cinematography was especially nauseous, as the borders of every shot were so unnecessarily out-of-focus. This same quality is seen in the likes of Lifetime original movies and as strange as it may sound, I was actually expecting more from Netflix. I don't know how much more I can emphasize this, but in one word, this film is exactly what Jake calls Gabriela in the "turning point": soulless.
I know that filmmakers have to get their start somewhere and perhaps Netflix is a good starting point for that career, especially today. But when a movie like this is released from a previously-established director, it's interesting to wonder where everything went wrong. Was it when Kumble signed on to half-heartedly attempt to direct this or was it when I, the fool, chose to watch this over everything else? Who's to say? Honestly, there is nothing exceptionally wrong about Falling Inn Love, it's just that there are a million other ways I could have much better spent my time.
My Rating: ★
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