This movie was a sweet, fun romance, with a bit of fantasy thrown in. It was basically your typical Hallmark-esque rom-com with slightly better production values and a bigger star, in the person of Lindsey Lohan. She's great throughout, providing a cute, relatable heroine with a good sense of comedic timing. The premise of the story is intriguing. What would you do if you could wish for a different life, together with the person you think you want but thought you could never have? I also enjoyed the beautiful Irish scenery. The movie definitely provided you with a lot of eye candy.
This movie certainly borrows a lot from other rom-coms. 27 Dresses and Leap Year immediately come to mind. This movie is mostly fun and enjoyable, but, to be honest, those other movies did it better. I'd describe this film as underdeveloped. Somehow, I never felt the intense emotions that Lohan's character Maddie supposedly felt for the Irish writer Paul. When she's transformed to the reality where she's engaged to Paul, she seems mostly awkward around him. She needed a character arc, where she was initially enjoying being with Paul (she didn't even kiss him!) and then slowly realizes that she's not really happy with him. The romance between her and English photographer James was also not developed that well. Oh, there were moments, but on the whole, that relationship felt forced and half-baked. Also, they tried to do the enemies-to-lovers trope, but it wasn't very convincing. So, they get off on the wrong foot because she fights with him over his suitcase that she claims is hers? Really? Also, if you're going to use that trope, there needs to be a lot more back-and-forth sparring and witty banter between the two of them. The characters in Leap Year did this much better.
Had I been the screenwriter, here's how I would've had things play out. Maddie is initially ecstatic about being in the alternate reality, where she's engaged to Paul. She takes full advantage of the situation. James, on the other hand, is an annoying guy who gets on her nerves, but she has to deal with him because he's the photographer. They regularly trade barbs with each other. James photographs both Maddie and Paul at the Cliffs of Moher, but Paul is kind of dismissive of Maddie and calls an Uber to take him back to the house for something he considers more important, leaving Maddie to finish out the shoot alone and forcing her to ride back with James, much to her annoyance. The attempted ride back is an unmitigated disaster, with James' car sliding off the road in the rain and crashing, with both of them getting muddy and wet. The roads are impassible in the storm until morning, leaving a furious Maddie to spend the night with James at the pub, where they have to share the same room because it's the only one left. They slowly warm up to each other at the pub, dancing and playing darts and eventually sharing personal details about their lives. She faces some serious introspection, where she wonders why she is even together with an egocentric leech of a guy like Paul, who is passing off her great writing as his own. She also realizes that James isn't as bad as she originally thought. Perhaps he has had some heartbreaks in his past, which led him to his nomadic, attachment-free life as a photographer. They return for the wedding, and Paul and Maddie's friend Emma have connected while she was gone. Then you have the rest of the movie play out as it did, with her confession that she doesn't love Paul, the fight between Paul and James at the wedding, etc. See, much better plot. The paid screenwriters who wrote the script for this movie could've and should've come up with a plot more like that. Maybe they were under a deadline, so they didn't have the time to do it better?
This isn't a perfect movie, but for what it was, a light, airy, fantasy romance, it was reasonably entertaining and a decent way to pass a couple of hours. Just enjoy it for what it is, and don't think too much about it.
This movie certainly borrows a lot from other rom-coms. 27 Dresses and Leap Year immediately come to mind. This movie is mostly fun and enjoyable, but, to be honest, those other movies did it better. I'd describe this film as underdeveloped. Somehow, I never felt the intense emotions that Lohan's character Maddie supposedly felt for the Irish writer Paul. When she's transformed to the reality where she's engaged to Paul, she seems mostly awkward around him. She needed a character arc, where she was initially enjoying being with Paul (she didn't even kiss him!) and then slowly realizes that she's not really happy with him. The romance between her and English photographer James was also not developed that well. Oh, there were moments, but on the whole, that relationship felt forced and half-baked. Also, they tried to do the enemies-to-lovers trope, but it wasn't very convincing. So, they get off on the wrong foot because she fights with him over his suitcase that she claims is hers? Really? Also, if you're going to use that trope, there needs to be a lot more back-and-forth sparring and witty banter between the two of them. The characters in Leap Year did this much better.
Had I been the screenwriter, here's how I would've had things play out. Maddie is initially ecstatic about being in the alternate reality, where she's engaged to Paul. She takes full advantage of the situation. James, on the other hand, is an annoying guy who gets on her nerves, but she has to deal with him because he's the photographer. They regularly trade barbs with each other. James photographs both Maddie and Paul at the Cliffs of Moher, but Paul is kind of dismissive of Maddie and calls an Uber to take him back to the house for something he considers more important, leaving Maddie to finish out the shoot alone and forcing her to ride back with James, much to her annoyance. The attempted ride back is an unmitigated disaster, with James' car sliding off the road in the rain and crashing, with both of them getting muddy and wet. The roads are impassible in the storm until morning, leaving a furious Maddie to spend the night with James at the pub, where they have to share the same room because it's the only one left. They slowly warm up to each other at the pub, dancing and playing darts and eventually sharing personal details about their lives. She faces some serious introspection, where she wonders why she is even together with an egocentric leech of a guy like Paul, who is passing off her great writing as his own. She also realizes that James isn't as bad as she originally thought. Perhaps he has had some heartbreaks in his past, which led him to his nomadic, attachment-free life as a photographer. They return for the wedding, and Paul and Maddie's friend Emma have connected while she was gone. Then you have the rest of the movie play out as it did, with her confession that she doesn't love Paul, the fight between Paul and James at the wedding, etc. See, much better plot. The paid screenwriters who wrote the script for this movie could've and should've come up with a plot more like that. Maybe they were under a deadline, so they didn't have the time to do it better?
This isn't a perfect movie, but for what it was, a light, airy, fantasy romance, it was reasonably entertaining and a decent way to pass a couple of hours. Just enjoy it for what it is, and don't think too much about it.