by Lisa Nystrom
Worth: $9.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Sophie Cookson, Lucien Laviscount, John Hannah
Intro:
… a harmless enough jaunt about fate and taking risks …
Loaded with festive aesthetic, big woolly scarves, and light-strewn streets, we are firmly in holiday movie territory here. Based on Sophie Cousens’ novel of the same name, rich and handsome Quinn Hamilton (Lucien Laviscount) meets sweet and accident-prone Minnie Cooper (Sophie Cookson) at a New Year’s Eve party that just so happens to fall on their shared 30th birthday. They bond over the coincidence that their mothers shared a birthing suite in the same hospital and become fast friends with the potential for something more, only there’s a catch — Minnie is a birthday jinx. Every year, catastrophe follows her around and causes havoc. It seems that Quinn not only stole the name that her mother intended for Minnie, but all of her luck as well.
It’s the classic Cute Clumsy Girl trope amplified tenfold, leading to quirky birthday shenanigans, which isn’t necessarily a deal breaker when tempered with the right amount of charm. Unfortunately, with clunky exposition imparted via flashback and smouldering through meet-cute dialogue like “I try to see the first sunrise of every year”, the ratio between charm and cheese leans heavily towards the latter.
Cookson is doing her utmost to deliver a performance worthy of the flustered but independent romcom lead we all so adore, but the scenes where she truly shines are the quieter more character driven moments, rather than the forced cutesy neurotic and flighty mess ones. The script, adapted by the author, doesn’t translate well from page to screen, and while both Cookson and Laviscount give it their all, the chemistry just isn’t there. Their sibling-like energy elicits more spark during their antagonistic banter than at the height of their romantic monologues. John Hannah manages to breathe some life into his role as Minnie’s dad Keith, and the developing friendship between the two mothers who shared a hospital room all those years ago is surprisingly sweet. Ultimately, it’s a harmless enough jaunt about fate and taking risks, but with the lead up to Christmas kicking off, there’ll soon be plenty of options out there in the same vein, both better and undoubtedly worse.
