Holly Hess

Reviews and other content aren't verified by Google

Not horrible, but not great. Is it worth the time to watch this movie if you’ve never seen it before? Eh, sure. But I’m not sure I would rewatch this one. The storyline was different which I appreciated but it played out in a very cliche, predictable way. Plus, the ending was very milquetoast. Spoilers ahead: Wyatt Russell is a decent actor, but this performance was far from his best. He’s cast as the doting, ailing father but comes off as more of an inconvenienced surfer boy. I’m not convinced that this man would’ve given up a $5 footlong for his family, let alone allow himself to drown and stay in the watery underworld of the pool. The story has good bones but a lackluster execution with much to be desired. Have I seen worse? Yes. Have I seen better? Also yes. It’s a good free movie if you’re bored and want something new to watch but that’s about the only purpose it serves.

This movie was excruciatingly painful to get through. I imagine that the concept of finding yourself after divorce was a novel concept in cinema in 2010, but wow this movie totally missed the mark. The movie starts with her leaving an unhappy marriage and then immediately turning around and going into a relationship with some other dude. So far, I can get behind the protagonist having the character flaw of being a “serial dater”, but I’m thinking “okay, part of her journey of self-discovery will be around finding out who she is without a man”. LOL WRONG. She goes to Italy where she eats, thinks about men and fat-shames herself. Then she goes to India to live in an ashram where she meets another pasty white dude who only ever gives her a hard time (and nicknames her “Groceries” because she eats a lot??? Like, were the people who made this movie okay? Did any of them have an eating disorder?) and he changes her life because god forbid the POC who are native to India do that. Which, while she’s in India she meets a girl (that’s right, a 17-year-old girl) who’s in an arranged marriage and doesn’t want to be. Silly me, thinking that the woman who’s on a journey of self-discovery would tell this girl things like listen to her heart and leave and not accept the marriage. NOPE, tells her “I imagine that you and this dude who you have zero interest in are happy” like WHAT. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that there may be cultural constraints that this girl has to deal with which probably means that she can’t leave but you (the main character) are LITERALLY telling this girl to go and live the life that you are trying to distance yourself from??? WHAT? And to top it all off, the movie started and ended with her seeing a medicine man who told her she’d come back to Bali and she of course listens because why would we go anywhere without a man telling us that we should go there? And in case viewers weren’t suffering enough, in the last excruciating minutes of the movie she manages to find “true love” because what’s self-discovery without repeating our old toxic patterns? Anyway, if you’ve made it to the end of this review, I recommend watching paint dry or sawing your leg off over watching this movie because both are way more interesting and way less painful.