“A Tourist’s Guide to Love” Review
This Netflix original film did a disservice to tourists and romcoms everywhere.
The story starts with travel agent Amanda. From the first time she is on screen, she is annoying. She and her boss Mona are a not-so-iconic duo. Mona convinces Amanda to get her nails done because she is convinced that her boyfriend of five years is going to propose.
Predictably, he does not and this leads into the rest of the film which is also incredibly predictable. Instead of dropping on one knee, the boyfriend drops the news that he is moving to Ohio to pursue a better job in accounting.
The audience learns very little about the boyfriend throughout the film, but this scene makes it clear that Amanda is better off without him. But how will she recover from this personal blow?
The only way she knows how, to travel for work, but where? Vietnam. She is going undercover to write about Vietnamese tourism, of course.
As soon as she gets there she meets Sinh, who immediately can be presumed to be her love interest. He is accompanied by his cousin Anh, who is the first interesting character in the film.
She has pink pigtails and incredible style. Her witty side comments pick up the excitement level.
From here on in the movie, Sinh is showing Amanda around Vietnam and they are pretty much attached at the hip. They have some intense shoulder touches and other weird very unsexual, sexually tense moments.
It is hard to see the chemistry between these two characters. Even when Amanda says that she has been attracted to him since she first arrived on this trip, it is incredibly hard to believe.
Amanda is played by Rachael Leigh Cook, who has starred in several Hallmark movies. Her acting in this movie makes it very clear of her prior acting jobs.
This movie is absolutely giving Hallmark. It is cringy and not funny, but you want the best for the characters and end up getting invested despite all of its terribleness.
The movie does not have a great rating anywhere and truly does not represent romcoms well.
Recently, Netflix has released a number of its own rom-coms, and this one is definitely the worst.
All in all, it is not a terrible movie, but it is not recommendable.
Rating: ⅕
Savannah Swartz is a second-year communications major. To contact her, email sms9072@psu.edu.
