Nikola Curcin’s Adriatico My Love
There's a homemade quality to this low-budget Canadian drama that may strike some as endearing. Still, the raggedness of the aesthetic can't disguise bland storytelling.
Informed by her bosses that she suddenly isn't "bankable," kooky cable-network food-show hostess Alex (Valerie Buhagiar) decides to take a detour to the eponymous Mediterranean locale, with her petulant twentysomething daughter, Lucy (Dorian Kolinas), in tow.
Alex's pitch is about reconnecting the pair to their family roots; after some predictable road-trip friction, the two women ease into each other's company and the various picture-postcard charms of the seaside village (including all the olive oil they can slurp).
Since we know that Alex and Lucy will eventually get their respective grooves back before returning to Toronto, Adriatico My Love isn't particularly suspenseful.
In lieu of originality, director Nikola Curcin settles for a series of scenic soap-opera complications (including some beach-blanket nookie with the locals) and the usual platitudinous sentiments about having to go far away in order to finally feel at home.