One True Loves: Amare per due

My wife read the book and made me watch this, and it's simply this. If you love Hallmark movies, you'll love this. Otherwise it's nothing special.

The chemistry between the characters feels like a forced C- effort. The husband gives the best performance but even that feels almost like overacting in comparison.

It's a simple plot, a girl needs to choose between two serious relationship options and there's a very predictable flow from then on out. You're not worried about her bc she's in a win/win either way. You feel sorry (I guess) for the two suitors.

I won't watch this again, unless someone really wants to see this; Id avoid it. My wife said there were some big deviations from the book, but I wasn't interested enough to ask what they were.

I'm not sure why this is rated so low! It was a very sweet, and actually really sad, movie. The premise isn't unique, but it was still beautifully executed and well acted. The scenes could have been arranged differently to have more of an emotional impact. For example, the movie starts with the second relationship, and tells the former in flashbacks. In my opinion, they should have allowed the first relationship to grow on the viewer, then bam! He is abruptly taken from the actress and the viewer and we are left with emotional carnage. Despite that, I did appreciate the conundrum the movie presented. It would be so difficult to have to choose between an old love and new. I found myself "choosing a side" then the next scene the other suitor would give some grand dialogue and I would shift my preference. I did this repeatedly and I found my conservative self almost wishing for throuple! As the movie progresses, it becomes clear one suitor is more compatible with the lead, but it was still heartbreaking to watch. Overall, a good movie that tugs at the heartstrings.

I can easily say that the book was one of my favorite standalone books of 2022. And the saying the book is always better stands too true for this one. So a warning that my review is my opinion and is written as someone who adored the book.

The book catches you in the feels and makes you laugh, cry, and feel literally everything. You get deep character development and you see the story as a whole, the book flows well so that you have a complete understanding of what is going on at all times.

The movie did not do that. It was made too Romcom feel and took all the serious heart felt parts from the book and sort of butchered it so that we saw less and felt almost nothing. They condensed this so much it felt completely rushed the entire time and the flashbacks did nothing to help the frantic feel of the movie. It just felt goofy the whole time. I wanted that heartbreak and emotion from the book.

The Maine portion of the book had so much impact on the story yet in the movie it fell so, so flat and cringe. We didn't see any character development at all like we do in the book, that helped ua understand WHY they fell apart.

The actors had no chemistry at all. The acting was cringe, as well. It just never felt right to me. The actors look great for the parts but their acting didn't do them justice at all. I'm just disappointed in how this turned out, overall. It should have been longer and it should have been less Romcom feel, in my opinion.

I am always a fan of reading a book before watching the movie, and normally the book is better but I didn't even love the book. But this movie is SO BAD, it made me appreciate the book a lot more.

It looks so cheap, I don't want to say low budget cause not all low budget movies are bad.

It is super rushed. There is no depth to the characters at all, they are all completely unbelievable. There is not enough history maybe to develop the characters, but I guess even if they had it would have been as bad as the rest of the movie.

It's actually frustrating to watch, the dialogue isn't good, and they have the book to go off of, which definitely had better dialogue. It's as though they didn't know how to convey parts of the book without the cringey dialogue.

I don't know if it's the acting or directing but it just feels flat, on all levels.

Was pleasantly surprised by this movie. While the set up is a little clunky, imagine the end scene in castaway where Tom Hanks turns up to his wife's home and then turn that into a movie. Had this script been written in the 2000s I can easily see the movie being a screwball Cameron Diaz vehicle with a much bigger emphasis on the comedic elements in the script, perhaps even Ashton Kuchner popping up somewhere. But what this movie does instead of playing for laughs is wring the drama out of the story, giving the two leads Phillipa Soo and Luke Bracey a lot of time to build their romance, which does make us invested in the love triangle element once it occurs. Which is to the detriment of Simu Liu, who does a lot of work away from the main leads, which slightly undermines his leading man status, as Soo and Bracey are the ones we're rooting for, and Liu seems like a genuine inconvenience for most of the movie and is given very little beyond his third wheel status.

Phillipa Soo is great as a leading lady genuinely torn by her love of two fine men, Bracey and Liu both do good work, a pleasant surprise and one definitely worth checking in on.