A Tourist's Guide To Love (2023)

This movie, a made for Netflix production, ticks all my boxes for a movie to watch when my spouse is on call. Since there is so little to feel good about these days, it is a way to escape for a couple of hours. I have a hand sewing project that I can make progress on as well. In the next couple months I will start watching Oscar contenders in earnest, but in the mean time this sort of movie is what I am looking for. Amanda Riley is an uptight, high powered Los Angeles-based travel agent living a safe and predictable existence with her boring accountant boyfriend, John. Amanda’s world gets turned a little upside down when John tells her--with a lot of excitement--that he is taking a job in Ohio, so they should hit the pause button on their relationship. Amanda's boss Mona, who is also a friend, sends her on an undercover scouting trip to check out a Vietnamese tour company that is coming up for sale. The company is a bit seat of the pants, operated by two charming cousins who go off script to show Amanda the real Vietnam--their tour is the opposite of the one my spouse and I took, going from Saigon to Hanoi (yes, it is Ho Chi Min City but no, nobody in Vietnam calls it that it seems) with stops in Hoi An, My Son, and Hue in between. The scenery alone is well worth watching this, but it is a charming rom com that totally down plays just how hard it is to cross a street and the humidity, but is a taste of Vietnam as well.