From the moment I turned on Netflix’s new cringeworthy romantic comedy Falling Inn Love, I knew it was ridiculous. Here was yet another young woman wearing a pink trench coat, holding an obviously empty coffee cup and texting her boyfriend while an upbeat pop song played in the background. But for some reason, I was hooked.
The film follows Gabriela Diaz (Christian Milian), a designer who moves to New Zealand after getting laid off from her job, breaking up with her boyfriend, and winning an inn through an online contest. The inn is not quite as advertised, so she hires the resident handyman/town stud Jake (Adam Demos), and the two fall in love in the process of transforming this ramshackle of a house into a cozy and eco-friendly B&B in an unreasonably short amount of time.
The movie is full of romantic comedy tropes, almost to the point of parody. There’s the annoying boss who doesn’t take our heroine’s ideas seriously enough and the high-powered ex who we all know will never truly commit.
There’s the scene where Gabriela and her bestie discuss their romantic woes while in yoga class and the fact that we’re meant to believe Gabriela’s broke while living alone in an egregiously large apartment in San Francisco that she just hands over to said friend to use as a “meditative retreat.”
Netflix
There are the bad decisions that come courtesy of too much wine (which are meant to be funny), the gay couple that seems to have no purpose other than to be cheerleaders for the heroine, and the rival B&B owner who tries to mess everything up for our leading lady.
There’s the scene where an otherwise smart woman seems to think it’s a good idea to arrive in the Outback in heels and has her suitcase roll down a hill, only to be begrudgingly rescued by an Australian hunk (Jake).
Naturally, they hate each other at first, until Gabriela realizes that Jake, too, is in some ways broken (that’s why he fixes houses! Get it?! It’s an allegory).
And most importantly, there is this scene:
And this line that Jake pulls while Gabriela is staring at a broken oven:
Falling Inn Love has been trending on Netflix ever since it dropped on August 29th, and Twitter users everywhere can't stop hate-watching it, despite the full knowledge that it is absolute garbage.
I mean, it was one thing when we watched these films back in the '80s, '90s, and even early aughts. Those were simpler times. But by now, we know that these tropes are ridiculous, and if we do re-watch the beloved rom-coms of our youth, it’s purely to slide into the psychological warmth of our younger days. But why, as with A Christmas Prince before it, are we devouring this new addition?
When Best Life reached out to Netflix about the movie's allure, the streaming service declined to comment. But it’s not difficult to see what they’re doing to revitalize a genre that many proclaimed dead.
The “genius” of these movies is that they roll all of the clichés that we’ve complained about so tightly, it’s clear they are in on the joke. At times, it almost feels like Falling Inn Love is winking at you and saying, “I feel you, girl, I know this is stupid, but maybe stupid is what you need right now.”
They’ve also done their part to rectify some of the more problematic elements of rom-com classics, most notably their lack of diversity. Gabriela’s concerns around climate change also make the film feel current, but not too heavy. And there's a compassion to Falling Inn Love that the rom-coms of yore lacked. Even the villain isn’t so villain-y; she’s just trying to get by like the rest of us.
There’s a comfort to taking these oh-so-familiar tropes and imbuing them into a modern, updated setting. After all, we all need an escape and a reason to believe that maybe, just maybe, everything will turn out OK.
And if you are in the mood to re-watch a classic rom-com, check out The 40 Greatest Teen Movies Ever—Ranked.
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