A Tourist's Guide to Love

Streaming review

Travel is something that I love, even though I’ve had limited opportunities to go out and do it. Whether domestic or international travel, I love getting to see what holds the main place of privilege in a community. Favorite foods, favorite landmarks, favorite lore - I love a chance to experience all of it. That yearning to travel led me to Steven K. Tsuchida’s “A Tourist’s Guide to Love,” currently streaming on Netflix. 

When Amanda (Rachael Leigh Cook) discovers that John (Ben Feldman), her boyfriend of five years isn’t proposing, but rather breaking up with her, she takes an assignment at her travel firm to go to Vietnam. The company is looking to acquire a small travel firm run by Anh (Thanh Truc) and her brother Sinh (Scott Ly). 

Amanda goes to Vietnam hoping to see the most popular sights and to experience a “safe for Americans” version of Tet, a celebration of renewal, but Sinh has other plans. A free spirit to her type-A personality, Sinh invites Amanda to stop being a tourist and begin to be a traveler. Will she also be able to find herself and maybe a new love?

I genuinely wanted to like this movie more than I did, but I could not. Netflix has gone hard after the Hallmark-style rom-com market, and this is another in that vein. It has the production value of a more mainstream romantic comedy and the inclusion of a lesbian couple that set it apart from its greeting card nemesis, but at its core, it is safe in a way that robs it of any kind of significant impact.

The performances are all adequate. I didn’t really find the chemistry between Cook and Ly convincing (or between Cook and Feldman, to be honest). There was nothing that was terrible about any of them, but if the goal is to have me rooting for a couple to get together by the end of the movie, I have to believe, at least a little bit, that this couple should get together by the end, and truly, I just didn’t have that vibe from them.

As I mentioned above, the production value is quite good on this. Vietnam offers a gorgeous backdrop from this movie, and it is captured beautifully on film. And because of the nature of the movie, they focused on some of the less well-known aspects of the country, showcasing places that might not be seen as often, which I did appreciate. 

Like most people, I don’t turn on a rom-com for realism. There is absolutely a sense of escape that one looks for when watching this kind of film. But I also want a story that makes me feel something. And when your thesis statement is “a tourist wants to escape life, a traveler wants to experience it,” I expect you to give me something more than sheer escapism. Unfortunately, that was all I got from “A Tourist’s Guide to Love.”

This review originally appeared in The Dominion Post on April 29, 2023.