Persuation (2022)

Ok, there are so many interpretations of this book specifically and Jane Austen in general that it is hard to know which I like best--the Regency steeped ones or the modern versions. This one is kind of a mash up of the two. Set in the original times period, but with decidedly modern asides. This is a thoroughly charming portrayal of Anne Elliot.She drinks red wine straight from the bottle, is seen crying in the tub and lying around in bed, narrating her romantic woes with a familiar, self-effacing wit. She also repeatedly breaks the fourth wall with an amusingly dry aside or a well-timed eye roll. Anne jokes that she’s “thriving,” and clearly she is anything but, but she’s so winning in her state of loss that we can’t help but root for her. Her plight is that the love of her life, Frederick Wentworth, was penniless when they first met, about to set sail on a Navy ship, and Ann's up tight, society obsessed family convinced her that she should give him up--which she did and eight years later she regrets that choice every single day. Then, as luck would have it, they meet up again, and now he is a rich man, all while her own family's fortune is waning--but does she tell him how she feels? Does he tell her he carries a torch for her? No, of course not, so we all have to watch them miss each other time and time again. Not terribly satisfying, but Ann is great and so in the end, I recommend this.

Holiday in the Vineyards (2025)

Yes, this is a romantic comedy aimed at the holiday viewing set, and no it is not a great film. I watchd it when my spouse unexpectedly tested positive for COVID and all of our weekend plans got canceled or put on hold because of it. He was ill, not just infected, and so our whole household lived separate lives for several days and I watched this movie. I enjoy the occasional movie in this genre. There are predictable things that happen and there are some real stretches to believe, more so than in movies of this genre, which is saying something. The situation is that Carter Baldwyn is the screw-up son of Margo Baldwyn (Eileen Davidson), the wealthy head of a huge bargain basement wine brand. In an effort to prove to his mom that he’s not a total good-for-nothing, he agrees to visit a small winery called Huckabee Vineyard in the fictional wine country town of Los Santos, CA, that’s just gone on the market and which his mother wants to acquire for their company. The catch – Carter has to be a run of the mill guy while he’s scoping out the vineyard so no one catches wind that it’s a Baldwyn that’s buying. No one likes the Baldwyns or their brand, becausethey are predators who not only make bad wine, but have a scorched earth approach to doing so. Carter lucks out when the real estate agent selling Huckabee, Valentina Espin offers him a place to stay if he finishes the remodel on her guest house. She is a widowed mom of two adorable boys, and Carter is no more suited to renovation than he is to anything else, but he manages to get the local hardware store owner to help him. It turns out that the locals are making some very good wine in their garages, and Carter comes to see things from their point of view. The scenery is gorgeous, and this is a quiet unassuming movie.

Dolce Villa (2025)

This is a lifeless script with adequate acting--except for the town mayor, Francesca, who is fun from start to finish. The real draw here is the charming Italian town where they are selling houses for $1 in the hopes of revitalizing a village where the population is shrinking to the point of not being sustainable. This is actually happening-two of my kids studied abroad in Sicily and a town nearby, Gangivecchio, had such a deal. The scenery is spectacular, and the house they are renovating is gorgeous. The story here is that a duaghter who is wandering aimlessly in both Italy and life happens upon this village and embarks on a plan to renovate a broke down palace using money that her Italian mother who died recently left her and her father, who used to be a chef but quit when his wife got ill, goes after her to stop her. Stop her he does not, and they both find love, love of land, and love of food and making it. No surprises.

The Life List (2025)

When my spouse is on call or I am traveling for work I like to watch very light weight movies that he would not much enjoy, and this is just that. The difference is that for the most part these play the same role that reading murder mysteries do for me--something that I can wind down to that don't take too much in the way of attention. This one is quite formaulaic--a 30-something woman, Alex, is playing it safe by working for her mother and living at home while she is taking a pause, including being involved with someone who she is more biding her time with than in love with. It all changes when her mother's cancer comes back. Her mother elects comfort care and when Alex finds out that her mother gave her job to her sister-in-law and leaves her with the task of completing a Life List that she wrote when she was 13 years old in order to hear what she inherits. Yes, we know what will happen from the get go, and yet, it was a very enjoyable journey for me. I am not one to micro-manage, as Alex's mother saw fit, but watching it unfold was quite entertaining for me. There are literally no surprises, which is kind of the point of this genre and I definitely got what I was hoping for from it.

The Wedding Banquet (2025)

I really liked this and my only regret is that I did not watch it during PRIDE month, when I should have been celebrating that while women are now second class citizens in terms of personal autonomy, being gay and married is still allowed. This is an homage to Ang Lee’s ahead-of-its-time classic of the same name and retains some of the basics of that wonderful movie. They are both the tale of a queer couple and one of the life partners’ arranged marriage to their female tenant to both trick his conservative parents and help the bride with her green card. This version first and foremost recognizes that a lot has advanced in America when it comes to the LGBTQ+ community, cultural representation, and the country’s multi-racial construct--at least for now--anything the Nazis hated the current GOP party feels similarly about, but for now we rejoice in the gains. And in that vein (the celebration, not those who seek to queel it) it also understands that the core of everyone’s shared humanity hasn’t changed: love still matters, families (especially chosen families) are worth fighting for, and generational relationships are as complicated as ever. Don't miss this one, and if you haven;t seen the original, see it first!

Champions (2025)

This is a very enjoyable and entirely predictable romantic comedy. I watched this while I was traveling, and one plane landing while I still had about a quarter of the movie to go. While I was switching planes and waiting to board, I played out what I thought would likely happen and while I was not 100% correct, I nailed about 92% of it. That, in my mind, is what makes a successful movie in this genre--that you know exactly what will happen and you can't wait to watch it unfold. This is also a very likable sports comedy – what I did not know until I read a review of the movie is that it is a remake of the 2018 Spanish film Campeones (inspired by the real-life story of the Aderes basketball team in Burjassot) that delivers belly laughs and heartfelt charm in equal measure. Woody Harrelson plays Marcus Marakovich, an irascible assistant coach working in minor league basketball whose life unravels when he fights with his superior Phil (Ernie Hudson) on court and then drunkenly rear-ends a cop car on the road. To avoid prison, Marcus accepts 90 days’ community service coaching “adults with intellectual disabilities”. He is not what you would call enthusiastic about this, in fact he is rude and narrow minded, but as you might predict, they win his heart, and it is just a fun movie to watch.

You're Cordially Invited (2025)

I watched this romantic comedy on a long haul flight home recently. It features Reece Witherspoon as a high-powered, equally high maintenance TV executive who is acting as the wedding planner for her niece’s wedding as well as Will Ferrell, whose only daughter is getting married at the sight of he and his deceased wife’s wedding. Both parties have an emotional attachment to the remote wedding venue and they are mistakenly double booked. It is a situation that has comedic potential—in this case it is not fully realized. The two veteran actors involved do a reasonable job with the material that they have, But everyone involved is a pretty decent person, which ironically makes the tension less funny and more cringe-worthy, and that in and of itself the stumbling block. All in all, this is just okay—I was happy to watch it, but wouldn’t recommend it to others.

Part of Your World by Abby Jimenez

One of my kids is a bit of a modern romance novel reader and he got me a little bit hooked on the Emily Henry style books. Those are the gold standard for me, but the Abby Jimenez books are pretty good. Then came Project 2025, barreling through America at lightning speed and destroying everything decent in its path with a head of state who cannot tell the truth even for a minute of the day. They lying, the cruelty and the graft are so staggering. So in contrast to that are these formulaic novels which have competent women, men who respect them and do not try to control them, and voila, it is a pleasant, if brief break from the white racist misogynists who want to break everything. Although in this case, not completely. Alexis has broken up with her boyfriend who is a decade older than her and wanted her weak and under his control. She finally breaks up with him because he cheats on her--but she does not get clean away, because her father is cut from the same cloth. A chance meeting with Daniel can change all that--he is everything her father looks down on--or is he? Alexis is trapped in a maze that she sees no exit from until all of a sudden, she does--wildly unrealistic in many ways but entirely likable. I will take a break but eventually read the second book in this series. The thing about these sorts of books is that people are a bit two dimensional and you have to be up for a bit of that when you read them.

A California Christmas (2020)

It is time to start revving up the holiday cheer, and suspending belief whenever possible. This is the season of Santa Claus and elves at the North Pole, so anything is possible. is better than expected. Truthfully, it is not much of a Christmas film. Christmas is more a deadline than a feature, with the story being set in the run-up to Christmas. With good performances from the majority of there cast and a story that, though predictable, is well told, A California Christmas is an enjoyable Christmas-esque romcom. Here is the basic outline--a playboy who is more of a love them and leave them kind of guy than much of a worker is tasked by his CEO mother of their family company with the job of getting a stubborn farm family to sell their farmland so as their company can build a new warehouse. It is an all or nothing assignment, where if he doesn't get the task accomplished by Christmas, he is going to be sidelined and maybe also cut off . The task is made more difficult when he gets to the farm and is mistaken for a farmhand, a mistake he does not correct. He pretends to be the farmhand in the hope of getting closer to the stubborn daughter and lots of the comedy comes from him not knowing one thing about being a farm hand--they have both land to care for as well as animals. He gets some help not making a complete botched job of it by getting help from the real ranch hand--who is perfectly happy to live in hte upscale accomodations rented for him, while he stays in a broke down camper. The whole thing works out much better than could be expected, and while not strictly Christmasy, I would recommend for holiday viewing--streaming on Netflix.

Love, Guaranteed (2020)

This is part of my solo travel movie binging that was almost 100% light hearted romantic comedies. I read a review that characterized it as sufficiently bland and calmy cozy, and I would agree with that characterization. Susan is a plucky and uptight attorney with a strong sense of justice who works tirelessly for the little guy--she makes almost no money and often works pro bono. She loves her work but she is barely making it, as her underpaid office staff frequently point out. Strapped for cash, she agrees to take a case with the handsome and charming Nick, whom she initially clashes with, naturally. Nick has come to their office because he wants to file a lawsuit against an online dating company called – you guessed it – Love, Guaranteed. He says he's gone on 986 dates without having found love and wants to sue for fraud. This is the part that should have scared her--he has copious documentation related to each of these failed dates, but no, that is that part that makes her feel like they might actually have a case. The target of the lawsuit is the website's wealthy owner, a woman who feigns enlightenment and says "namaste" a lot but misquotes Buddha--very unlikable, in other words. The movie wends its way to its predictable end in a very inoffensive way, and I would recommend it for the sort of night where you con't want to think too much, which is me post-election.

Just For The Summer by Abby Jimenez

I do not read much in the romantic genre, but I put this on my library hold list when it appeared as a recommendation in The Week as a good beach read--of course all of those four books took so long for me to wait for them that it was no longer beach season by the time I was able to check any of them out, but there are many opportunities for light reading to hit the spot. I found this entirely predictable, which is consistent with the genre, and none-the-less enjoyable. The premise is that Justin is the lucky rabbit foot for women who date him--after they break up with him, which happens pretty rapidly, the next person they date is their soul mate. Occasionally it is a friend of his, so his ex's are still around even, grateful and happy while he is vowing not to date again. Matters are complicated by his otherwise seemingly normal mother being on the brink of a long jail term after being convicted of embezzling a seemingly small amount of money she repaid, and he is going to be the guardian for his three younger siblings. Not exactly the stuff of romance. In comes Emily, who says that she too has the same curse as he, and they agree to date each other so that the next person they each date will be their dream come true. Emily has a lot of her own baggage, and it all conspires to break them up--or does it?

The Noel Diary (2022)

Still on my light and not altogether good romantic comedy adventure while traveling for work across southern Minnesota. Jake Turner is a damaged but likable and successful bestselling author who lives alone and is estranged from his parents. When he gets a call out of the blue that his estranged mother has passed away, he travels back to his childhood home to clean it out. One day while there, Rachel shows up at his door asking about someone who she believes to be her mother used to live in the house with his parents. She was there at the critical moment when Jake's older brother fell from a tree in the yard and died when Jake was four. She was also alone and pregnant with Rachel and Jake's parents took her in and let her live with them until she gave birth, and then gave her baby up for adoption. Thanks to the memories of helpful neighbor Ellie, Jake and Rachel discover that the person she's seeking was Jake's nanny and Rachel's biological mother. The discovery sends Jake and Rachel on a road trip to reconnect with Jake's father and to try to find out more information about Rachel's mother. The trip will force Jake and Rachel both outside their comfort zones in confronting their past and while this has all the elements of a romance, there is also a lot of grief, and the mixture is a good one, because the holidays always have a mixture of each.

Lonely Planet (2024)

This is yet another low level romantic comedy (which means a movie that was never meant for theatrical release, doesn't have an adequate script, and something that my family would complan vociferously if I tried to watch it at home) that I watched in a fall that was full of work related travel with a lot of alone time (BTW, I love alone time, but by the time I was able to spend two weeks in a row at home I was all over the alone time and ready to re-enter home life and all that entailed). The vibe has been that I have liked movies less than audiences have liked them, but this one was panned in quite a few venues and I found it diverting. Katherine (Laura Dern) is a writer on a fancy writers’ retreat in Morocco. She arrives at the retreat, which is at a palatial resort in the country with gorgeous views, beautiful architecture, but poor upkeep and lots of things that don't work. She doesn't notice because she has just been kicked out of her home and her relationship and she has writer's block so cannot finish her latest novel, which is overdue. Meanwhile, the other writers also begin to arrive, including Lil, a bright-eyed youngster who is fresh off the critical and commercial success of her debut novel, elated but deeply insecure about her place in the literary world and she’s somewhat inexplicably brought along her boyfriend Owen (Liam Hemsworth), a finance guy who really isn’t much of a reader. Well, guess what? Lily pays no attention to Owen, who is also not much of a traveler. He is bored out of his mind--and then he is also both pushed aside and berated for doing some business related to an unfinished deal that was in the works before he left--so bad to worse, and he starts to cast about for things to see and do, and Katherine always seems to be a source of both witty reparte as well as solace. The whole thing blows up--some volatile ingredients at work--but I enjoyed the ride--as well as the gorgeous scenery.

Love At First Sight (2023)

I spent most of six weeks on the road by myself for work and watched a string of romantic comedies that the rest of my family would blanch at watching, they are so formulaic and often badly written. This does fall into both of those pitfalls, and yet, in the end, I was glad that I watched it. There is so little of this, the understandable connection that people can make with each other when they are unexpectedly found sitting together for an enforced period of time--in this case, on a transatlantic flight--and then for whatever reason walk away, never to meet again. And to regret that they didn't do something to change that outcome. We first see Hadley racing through JFK Airport in New York to catch a plane to London. It is December 20, the peak of holiday travel, with over 193,000 passengers arriving and departing, causing an average of 23-minute delays at check-in and a peak wait time of 117 minutes at security. This explains why Hadley misses her plane by four minutes and has to wait for the next one when the only seat available is business class. It does give her time to look for a place to charge her cell phone, and that’s how she meets Oliver, who is studying, yes, statistics and data science at Yale. THey part ways, Hadley to attend her father's wedding and he to attend a party for his mother, and they do manage to cross paths, they find out that their lives are indeed more complex than they first appeared, and they have a chance to decide what to do about that.

Find Me Falling (2023)

I have been traveling almost non-stop these days and one of the many things I like to do when I am alone in a hotel room is to watch movies that the rest of my family would not care for--which includes movies like this and more broadly, silly romantic comedies this improbable situations and outcomes that require the suspension of belief. This is also a good example of a flawed IMDB rating. This is a pretty so-so movie that has a higher than expected audience rating (and I say that as someone with a weakness ofr this sort of fare). The setting is Cyprus, which is gorgeous--one up side of the movie is that a visit to the long-inhabited island moved up from a 'maybe' to a 'definite' on my "Must Visit" list of countries. The scenery as well as the window into the culture, which is both ancient and complicated, are the best part of the movie.Harry Connick Jr. is a bit of a wooden actor, but he plays an aging rock star who has returned to Cyprus at a point when his career has stalled and he is pulled back to a place when he last found love. He isn't quite ready to heal, and on top of that he finds some surprises that he left behind, and while people are wary of what his motives are, it all more or less works out.

A Family Affair (2023)

I have been trying to watch romantic comedies that have accomplished actors in them in order to sift through what might be acceptable and what might be painful, and the cast here includes two Academy Award winners (Nicole Kidman and Kathy Bates) as well as Zac Efron--so the acting is reasonable, but the script is weak, and the overall result is less than the sum of its parts. Kidman plays a successful writer who's husband dies years ago and she has not had a significant relationship since then. Her daughter, Zara, has creative aspirations, but is afraid of the shadow her mother's shadow casts, is working as a gopher for a successful but untalented actor who is emotionally immature and not at all nice. So when her mother and he start a pretty torrid affair, Zara has a lot of issues with it. That is essentially the plot, and it plays out more or less predictable across a 90 minute story line. My recommendation is to skip it, unless you really love one of the actors (I think Kidman is pretty spectacular, but even so, she really couldn't prop this up), or your bar for enjoyment of romantic comedies is very low (again, I think I fall int his category, and yet I struglled with this one).

Falling For Figaro (2020)

This is an entirely predictable and yet quite enjoyable romantic comedy with three main characters. The first is Meghan Geoffrey-Bishop(played by Joanna Lumley), a retired opera star earning a precarious living by giving singing lessons in her farmhouse in a remote pocket of the Scottish Highlands. She’s not exactly overwhelmed by students. Only the most intrepid need apply since each lesson is a survival course, spiked with vitriol and made even more interesting by the occasional physical assault. It’s her view no opera singer succeeds without becoming intimately acquainted with the value of suffering. While she is not the main attraction, she ultimately steals the show. Meghan has just two students – Max (Hugh Skinner), a handsome local who has devoted years to his desire to have an opera career, and Millie (Australian actor Danielle Macdonald), an American who has given up her lucrative job as a fund manager in London to see if she, too, has what it takes to become a singer. It is hard to quite get why, not because it is not all about the money for everyone, but because her character doesn't give much insight into that--be that as it may, the movie rolls on, going exactly the direction you would expect it to, to an lovely ending. The singing is dubbed by people who know what they are doing and is a plus rather than a detrement.

Fall Guy (2024)

This is a lovely confection that combines action with romance, with a heavy theme--someone is dead and someone else is missing--and a light hearted undertone. I love both Emily Blunt and Ryan Gosling--this is not the deepest characters they have played, but then again, they came off a year of promoting Barbenhiemer, and maybe they just needed a break. It is a movie designed to entertain above all else. It stands out from the crowd as a movie where you don't need to take notes or have seen the ones that came before it. Ryan Gosling plays Colt Seavers, a stunt double who had a bad accident and retreated into himself--until he was called back into action by "the one who got away" (turns out it wasn't her, but that's for you to find out when you see it). Gosling has such an easy-going charm that makes it hard not to smile when he is on screen. I read a review that accentuated this point, that when he was watching the Oscars and Gosling was singing “I’m Just Ken”, the man sitting next to him said, “I’m almost annoyed at how that guy can do anything.” Yes. That is it, and this movie is all about how fun that can feel. A lot goes wrong before it goes right, there are tons of stunts, because Colt is a stunt man, and so is the director, and it all gets wrapped up in a neat bow at the end. Not one for the ages, but a crowd pleaser for both genders.

French Girl (2023)

This is very much a romantic comedy that should be seen as that and nothing more. I watched it on a TransAtlantic flight, and that is the perfect setting within which to watch it. The plot is simple. Gordon is involved with Sophie. Sophie is a gifted chef and Gordon is a gifted middle school teacher--she sees his shining light, but he is less sure of it himself. When Sophie's ex, Ruby--a mega-star chef and a media sensation--tries to lure Sophie back home to Québec City with a too good to be true chef opportunity. I enjoyed it, and was particularly fond of the setting in Québec City--my parents spent their honeymoon 67 years ago at Château Frontenac, which is the restaurant featured in this movie. Built in seven stages from 1892-1893, this building is an excellent example of the Château-style hotels built by Canada's railway companies. Enhanced by a magnificent site, the hotel evokes the romanticism of the 14th- and 15th-century château of the Loire Valley. My mom had the hotel receipt from their stay, which was $15/night. amazingly--now parking is literally $14/hour, so the times they have changed. We ate in the bistro, and while the view far exceeded the food, it was a wonderful experience, and a nice walk down memory lane for my mom after we burried my dad in his hometown in Northern Maine on their anniversay.