Love & Gelato

The "love" portion of this film turns out to be self-love, valuable but not as romantic as I was hoping for. The backdrop of both Rome and Florence is spectacular and truly the best part of the film...the location cinematography.

This is the story of Lena Emerson, who was raised without a father in New York. Her single mother, who is her whole world, dies of cancer just as Lena is graduating from high school. Lena's mom made her promise to take the mother daughter trip to Italy for the Summer before college that they had planned. Lena's mom set up a few surprises for Lena on this trip...starting with her staying with her mom's best friend and her Italian godmother...who gives Lena her mother's journal from her time in Italy. She also is gifted her mom's camera and pushed out of her comfort zone...by just about everyone including to contradictory boys who she meets one a wealthy heir and the other an aspiring cook.

The bigger relationship is discovering herself and who her father is.

Again this was about self-love, the film was beautiful visually, but seemed choppy. I know this is based on a book, maybe there was a lot of material that they had to leave out? The film left me wanting. Howard was probably my favorite character along with Lena's crazy best friend Addie. Not a recommendation...unless you are craving some beautiful shots around Rome and Florence...although you might be able to find a better film for that, a few come to mind.

Didn't hate it, but didn't love it.

Sometimes I can't help wondering why some movies survives the script stage. It's not that i don't like a good romance flick, but unfortunately a vast majority sucks.

This one definitely does ! The characters are totally one dimensional and none of the actors seem to bother fleshing them out. Every twist and turn of the plot can be seen coming from miles away, and the most we get from this movie is some nice pictures of Rome, and that Italians are insane drivers.

We get some alleged love triangle between a smart rich guy and a nice not so rich guy, and there's some kind of mystery regarding who her father was, which might have been interesting if our leading girl was in any way interest worthy.

The script seems oddly fragmentary, and scenes just seem to be put in randomly. Waste of time.

The leading actress reminds me a lot of the actress in Emily goes to Paris. Not bad, but not ready for the big screen, needs a little more training in order to fully engage the audience. The cinematography was a big part of my reason for not turning it off after that ridiculous scene in the restaurant. The script was about a teen & could have been written by my granddaughter, who I was reminded of throughout the movie. But do I want to watch an hour & 1/2 of a high-strung teen? No. But the supporting cast - all of them - saved the show. I haven't read the book, but I do understand that producers & directors will change a book based on what they want. The only time I felt connected to the lead character however, was when she was in the gallery & actually acted normal. Normal may be boring, but it doesn't have to be if the actor can pull it off. This could be a nice series wirh a little work.

Zero chemistry between the young leads, terrible lead actress, total snooze-fest, very forced. I couldn't get past the first 20 minutes.

An American in Italy is so cliché.

This movie had an opportunity to be really good. The chemistry between the characters didn't work. It kinda just moves along at a sluggish pace and never hits the mark. There were a few parts of the movie that were funny and I watched it till the end. I would give it an average at best.