It is Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and new releases representing AAPI people and their culture are now available on streaming platforms. Representation is important. However, making a film in a specific location, casting actors from variated ethnicities, and showing different cultures is not always enough. A Tourist’s Guide to Love may happen in Vietnam, but that does not mean that the film is helping representation necessarily. I feel the film is doing more harm than good, honestly.
A Tourist’s Guide to Love is a movie, and there is not much more. Let me tell you why.
The feature follows a US travel agent named Amanda Riley, who has to travel to Vietnam on tour as a ‘Secret Shopper.’ The company She works for is considering expanding with Vietnam as a destination, and they want to find out whether the company is convenient for them. The film is a romantic comedy: The trip Amanda takes coincidentally happens after a breakup with a longtime partner and helps her overcome this loss and find new love on the way. The journey becomes spiritual, allowing her to let loose and become more spontaneous. Through it, she learns how to enjoy the moment.
These aspects of the film sound like so many other rom-coms involving travel; they tend to center around a woman grieving in a certain way and having a transformation by going somewhere else. Some of these narratives work, and others don’t: A Tourist’s Guide to Love does not. The story follows all possible cliches in the worst way possible, and it is predictable, boring, and dull. The film is deficient in almost every conceivable aspect, and the only nice thing about it is the Vietnam landscapes shown. The film is more of a travel guide than a movie. This makes Vietnam appear as traditionally conceived by white people – Even though it tries to do the opposite- as an exotic place. Exotization of a culture perceived as different is not okay, and I perceived it as offensive. The narrative of a white tourist in Vietnam made me feel deeply uncomfortable, mainly because Amanda represented a company that wanted to buy a small business there. Amanda meant colonization to me in a symbolic way, which doesn’t appear to be the filmmaker’s intention. However, it was impossible for me not to make this connection.
Whether this symbolism is perceived as intentional demonstrates how careless the script is. Besides these troubling aspects, the dialogs constantly exoticize Vietnam even more through the characters’ comments and reactions to the trip. The dialog is poorly written and feels unnatural. Everything that is said is cliche and fake. The acting does not help, it is painful to watch. Some secondary characters are okay, but the main couple cannot carry the whole movie. You never understand who they are, why they like each other, and why they do what they do. They are not tri-dimensional, and because of that, they lack importance. The film feels more like watching a soap opera than cinema.
The cinematography is nothing special. Dull and functional, it delivers the script as it should, and that is all. It is not adding anything; the only good thing is that the landscapes shown are beautiful. There is no visual strategy, not a spark of care, just technical aspects being met with an average standard.
Score 0/5
A Tourist’s Guide to Love is a movie available on streaming; if I were you, I would pass it. There are other rom-coms about travel that work much better. If you are in the mood for this type of narrative, I would recommend Under the Tuscan Sun and even Eat, Pray, Love. Not my favorite, but Julia Roberts rarely fails.
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