My Fault: London
A Florida teenager is forced to adapt to a new family in England in a by-the-numbers melodrama.
Star-crossed siblings: Asha Banks and Matthew Broome
Image courtesy of Amazon Media.
The oddest element about this formulaic potboiler is that it’s a remake of a 2023 Spanish film, Culpa mía. A sequel, Culpa Tuya (aka Your Fault) was released on Prime Video last December and a second follow-up is already in the works. The best thing about the English-language remake is the title, suggesting that the franchise could move in interesting directions: My Fault: Lagos? Considering the insubstantial narrative, it allows for all sorts of cultural permutations.
Essentially, the film is a Mills & Boon take on Fight Club wedded with Fast & Furious with a generous helping of last year’s Upgraded (also available on Amazon Prime). As seen through the eyes of a frosty beauty called Noah (in both the English and Spanish versions), the British capital is a bustling metropolis of mansions, stately hotels, banging nightclubs and largely traffic-free streets. Noah is played by the English actress-singer Asha Banks, who resembles a cross between a young Demi Moore and a young Salma Hayek, with the emotional range of neither.
At the outset we see her ruminating on a surfboard in the sea off the Florida coast, dreading her imminent trip to her mother’s homeland. Twenty years previously, her mother (Eve Macklin) left England for America to marry Noah’s dad and now, with the latter banged up in prison, is returning to London to marry one of the richest men in Europe. “What’s in London?” asks Noah’s boyfriend Dan (Harry Gilby), immediately displaying the sort of ignorance that would drive a girl to leave the country. The answer is obvious: London is full of mansions, stately hotels and banging nightclubs. But Noah is not interested and resents her mother’s new-found happiness, in spite of the domestic turmoil and abuse that they are leaving behind.
Once in London, in one of the biggest mansions in the capital, Noah can all but disguise a smirk as she eyes the underground garage and its attendant sports cars, the swimming pool and walk-in closets big enough to host a frat party. Then she sets eyes on her stepbrother Nick (Matthew Broome) as he emerges from the pool like a freshly minted Greek god. Noah is determined to rebuff her new life and that includes Nick, who she suspects is nothing but pure privilege and haughty English manners…
Nobody could guess where this all leads, but the film is such a preposterous take on life in contemporary Britain that it casts a spell like an unscheduled trip to Farringdon’s Fabric nightclub. But as Noah and Nick pick holes in each other’s sang froid, a “proper bad guy” (Sam Buchanan) steps on stage to shake up the drama. And who knew that London could host the means for an underground street racing jamboree? But as Noah’s new friend Jenna (Enva Lewis) points out, “No, Babe, in the UK we don’t race. We cruise and we drift and we pose.” Good to know. What we couldn’t appreciate was that Noah knows her Bola Fly Spokes as well as a roadster’s turbo capacity. Likewise, she had no idea that besides speeding in illegal drag races, her step-bro’ Nick is a champion bare-knuckle street fighter. The message is: just because somebody looks like a supermodel, doesn’t mean they can’t punch a guy’s lights out or bypass all the city’s speed cameras in a souped-up McLaren 720S.
My Fault: London is about as deep as a lick of Lancôme foundation, but some halfway decent sound design and slick production values makes it all slip down pretty painlessly on a dull Saturday night.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Asha Banks, Matthew Broome, Eve Macklin, Ray Fearon, Sam Buchanan, Enva Lewis, Jason Flemyng, Kerim Hassan, Christina Cole, Harry Gilby, Sekou Diaby, George Robinson.
Dir Dani Girdwood and Charlotte Fassler, Pro Ben Pugh and Erica Steinberg, Screenplay Melissa Osborne, Ph Ed Moore, Pro Des Kevin Phipps, Ed Robert Frost, Music James Jacob, Costumes Charlie Jones.
Ingenious Media/42-Amazon Media.
118 mins. UK. 2024. UK and US Rel: 13 February 2025. Cert. 15.
