I am willing to admit that I am a fan of cheesy romantic comedies and I like them for two particular reasons: one, I like romance, and two, I like ripping these movies apart. So, you can imagine how delighted I was when I discovered that Netflix was releasing Falling Inn Love at the end of August. Starring the queen of TV romantic comedies herself, Christina Milian, this film joins Netflix’s division of Hallmark-Channel-like films with movies like A Christmas Prince and The Holiday Calendar among its recognizable titles.
Falling Inn Love was surprisingly not as bad as I thought it would be. The chemistry between the lead actors holds most of this film together, but what threatens to make it fall apart is something that’s plagued many of its predecessors: weak story.
Warning: Spoilers!
Falling Inn Love is about a woman named Gabriela Diaz (Christina Milian) who is an exec for a company that designs houses and corporate properties. Gabriela is struggling: no one in her job takes her seriously, and her boss will not give her designs for energy-efficient houses a chance. On top of that, Gabriela’s boyfriend, Dean, is a jerk. He’s inattentive, but when he does offer her some of his time, he calls all the shots—even going as far as ordering for her at dinner. When Gabriela asks him to move in together, he refuses because it’s a big commitment, despite being together a few years now. Realizing that her man is a jerk and surprisingly not closeted or cheating, Gabriela decides that enough is enough and kicks him to the curb.
Drunk and at her wits end, Gabriela enters a contest in which the winner gets a free inn in New Zealand: the Bellbird Valley Farm Inn. Even more bizarre than a woman willingly offering up her private information over the internet to a sketchy contest, is that said woman wins this contest…the next day. Gabriela decides to take the offer with the goal of running the inn remotely, and flies to New Zealand.
While on her journey to Bellbird Valley Farm, Gabriela meets Jake Taylor (Adam Demos), a handsome contractor from Beechwood Downs. As the “enemies to lovers” trope dictates, they get off on the wrong foot after he accidentally crashes into her runaway suitcase. Jake makes some comments about how obviously out of place Gabriela is in this countryside town and offends her, thus kicking off the contrived conflict between these two characters.
Gabriela makes it to the inn and quickly learns that she was scammed into taking on a complete dump, as if the idea of someone giving away property for free wasn’t already a major red flag. Her goal now is to renovate the inn, however, she can’t do it on her own as she is one person and apparently broke. So, she enlists the help of a few of Beechwood Down’s residents.
Up until this point, most of Beechwood Downs has welcomed Gabriela: like the couple that owns the local cafe and the woman who owns the plant market…all except for Charlotte (Anna Jullienne). Charlotte owns the bed and breakfast Tea Rose House, and she wants to own the inn, a childhood dream of hers. When Gabriela refuses to give it up to her, Charlotte makes it her mission to sabotage her.
Things eventually change for Gabriela and Jake who can’t avoid each other any longer. Gabriela eventually realizes that Jake isn’t entirely an ass and that his ass is something she’d like spend some time with. So, she asks Jake for help with the renovations. They agree on a deal—drawn up by Jake himself—to split the costs, sell the inn and split the profits.
For the rest of the film, Jake and Gabriela bond over the inn. They have cute moments of banter and flirtation, and the “animosity” between them fades away. They begin to fall for each other culminating in a cute romantic scene set on a gorgeous beach, involving a picnic, reading old love letters, and kissing under the sun. Of course, this shit wasn’t going to last, and Gabriela gets offered a higher position with a new company back in San Francisco. She considers it, but Jake gets upset that she’s going to go ahead with their original plan—the deal that he came up with— and sell the inn.
Things get worse at the open house when Gabriela’s douchey ex, Dean, emerges from the bushes to try to prove his love to her…by bringing a potential buyer—how romantic! They give the (two) prospective buyers a tour and decide to sell, but not to Charlotte, of course—fuck Charlotte. It’s not like they had the opportunity to make this an easy sale, but I digress.
After some introspection, Gabriela realizes that she doesn’t want to leave Beechwood Downs and decides to keep the inn. She apologizes to Jake for God knows what reason, but Jake isn’t having any of it. Just before the film ends though, he returns, seemingly a little more reasonable this time, and gives Gabriela a letter. It’s mostly a business agreement, but Gabriela wants it to be his declaration of love, so Jake says it’s his declaration of love (it’s not). They kiss and live happily ever after.
A Weak Story
For the most part, I enjoyed this film thanks to it’s charming characters, the chemistry between the leads and its beautiful setting. However, these weren’t enough to make it good. Some downfalls of this film are its cliches and a character with the wrong internal journey.
The Cliches
One of this film’s most glaring problem is how cliche it is. Cliches aren’t entirely bad and are pretty common in rom-coms. I personally don’t have a problem with them…when they’re done right. A lot of the cliches in this film remain cliches because they’re just not justifiable.
The “Enemies to lovers” Trope
Typically I love this trope, but not so much in this film. Gabriela and Jake get off on the wrong foot, but for the dumbest reason. Jake states a fact: Gabriela is out of place in their small town. She’s a city-girl wearing high heeled designer boots in New Zealand’s countryside. Perhaps she was offended at how honest he was being without knowing her, but I don’t think it justified her continued pettiness towards him throughout the film. Thank goodness this didn’t last long, though, and how could it; the premise for their conflict was weak to begin with.
The “Mean Girl” Trope
Charlotte was written as the resident mean girl, but the truth is that she’s not actually mean or antagonistic. The worst thing she did was be stupid enough to pretend to be someone else over text and not delete the evidence. Charlotte was simply an ambitious person who wanted to own the inn, which she loved and whose history she understood. She’s not actually functioning as an antagonist because, at no point in this film, does she prevent Gabriela from obtaining her goal. Speaking of goals…
Gabriela's Journey
There appears to be a discrepancy between Gabriela’s external goal and her internal journey. Usually what makes a movie satisfying it it’s character’s inner journey. Falling Inn Love misses the mark.
At the end of Act II, Gabriela claimed to learned that “…just because something is broken, you don’t throw it away…the Kiwi way of life is about fixing up what is not working and treasuring what is worth saving”. She also realizes that she belongs in New Zealand, and that the inn was her dream home. However, none of these things actually contributed to Gabriela’s dissatisfaction with her life before she wins the inn.
Gabriela’s issue is that people don’t respect her, she feels powerless and no one believes in her dream of building energy-efficient homes. I would argue that the real lesson that Gabriela learns is something that Charlotte says at the climax of the movie: “You don’t give up on something you love.” Which is actually a theme that surrounds most of these characters.
You see, Gabriela’s desire was not to run an inn. It also wasn’t about finding a quiet life in the countryside in her dream home, like she says in the climax of the film. She didn’t begin the movie hating where she lived; she had a good life. What she hated was that no one gave her a chance to do what she loved and that she felt powerless. What she truly desired was to build and design energy efficient homes for a living, which gave her a sense of agency. Her lesson isn’t that you shouldn’t throw out what is broken, but that she shouldn’t give up on what she loves, therefore, giving her the agency she longs for. Perhaps if the movie had explored this journey, it would have resulted in a more impactful film.
Did you watch Netflix’s Falling Inn Love? What did you think of it? Leave a comment below!
Hi! Shantal here. I’m a writer and a storyteller. I created Shantal Writes to share my experiences with writing fiction. I also provide new writers with tips, tools, and writing advice. I hope you find something helpful while you’re here!
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