Love and Gelato

Another colourful romcom from Netflix might fail to impress even the most romantic moviegoer.

Susanna Skaggs

One of Netflix's favourite film genres would appear to be the romcom, something to appeal to a young and not too discerning audience. Love and Gelato is one such that fits the bill – it’s about young and beautiful people filmed in bright colourful locations, courtesy of Italy, where our American heroine Lina (Susanna Skaggs) is looking for something, possibly love, and trying to solve a mystery set up by Hadley, her late mother, who has never revealed who Lina's father was. Before she died, mother and daughter had planned a trip to Italy but Hadley insisted that, even after her death, Lina should still go to Rome, but alone, and stay with her mother's old friend, Francesca (Valentina Lodovini).

Much against her best instincts, Lina heads for Europe only to find she is in an uncomfortably gauche state of ignorance. She has never had a boyfriend and doesn't quite know how to handle those Italian boys when they come calling. She gets involved with two young men, rich boy Alessandro (Saul Nanni) and humble baker Lorenzo (Tobia De Angelis) but, looking at the diary her mother left with Valentina, she still feels stranded, at a loss of what to do and wondering whether she will ever find her birth father in a plot that's reminiscent of Mamma Mia!.

If you are a teenage girl, you might well be interested to know about Lina’s predicament, but producer-director Brandon Camp, who also wrote the screenplay, never really lets the film take off in an original way and it becomes grounded in clichéd scenes that go nowhere. And what is the connection between love and ice cream? Well, as one character says "Everything is better after gelato", to which our heroine responds by announcing that the ice cream is orgasmic. Well, then, she's easily pleased. That said, the real stars of the film are Rome and Florence and they provide an impeccably beautiful backdrop to these romcom shenanigans.

MICHAEL DARVELL

Cast Susanna Skaggs, Tobia De Angelis, Owen McDonnell, Valentina Lodovini, Saul Nanni, Anjelika Washington, Alex Boniello, Luca Seta.

Dir Brandon Camp, Pro Brandon Camp and Viola Prestieri, Screenplay Brandon Camp, based on the novel by Jenna Evans Welch, Ph Thomas Scott Stanton, Pro Des Eugenia F. Di Napoli, Ed Jacquelyn Le, Music Kostas Christides, Costumes Grazia Colombina.

Netflix-Netflix.
110 mins. 2022. USA. Rel: 22 June 2022. Cert 12.