That's Amor (2022)
No one’s ever indifferent to romcoms, even if they’re just running in the background, maybe because hope springs eternal that the genre will produce something that stands out from the gajillion other romance movies out there. That’s Amor looks light, frothy, and bright, but is it memorable? Not so much.
Sofia’s having a really bad day. She’s fired from her job as an assistant at a graphics design firm, and when she goes home she finds her boyfriend, Richard cheating on her. Then she falls down the stairs and breaks her ankle, so she moves back in with Lainie, her Zumba instructor mom.
Lainie, tired of watching her daughter sleeping all day long, not only practically drags Sofia to Zumba, but signs them up for a couples’ cooking class. They’ll be the only non-couple couple in the class, but they’ll be learning about the cuisine of sunny Spain.
Naturally, Sofia is a bit ticked off, but while she’s letting Lainie know it the smoulderingly handsome Matias offers to help her out of the car. Funny thing, he just so happens to be a new chef and assisting his uncle Guillermo in teaching the class. And also naturally, sparks fly between Sofia and Matias, although she’s still licking her wounds from what happened with Richard.
That’s Amor can be really cute. Sofia starts out as kind of petulant and pretty unlikeable, but she softens up and blossoms quite a bit, enjoying herself at Zumba and eagerly showing up for cooking class, and it’s not just because Matias is going to be there. Sofia’s relationship with her mother is another great point, because Lainie’s really good at getting her daughter out of her comfort zone.
However, I’m not gonna lie—I expected That’s Amor to hackneyed and predictable from beginning to end, and it is. It hits literally every rom-com cliche, from the Meet Cute to the Sparks Flying to the Temperature Rising to Let’s Leave the Potential Couple Alone So Things Can Get Awkward (that one happens a lot). They even have Sofia racing to the airport to stop Matias from flying back to Spain because she loves him too much.
Oh whoops, did I spoil something? No? Didn’t think so.
What’s even worse is that there are so many points when this movie could have kicked everything up a notch, and probably the biggest of the bunch is when both Richard and Matias’s girlfriend, Julietta both show up at the cooking class. This should have been a rapid-fire jaw-dropper of a scene because all the chickens come home to roost. Instead it barely registers because Richard parks himself at a table and doesn’t say a word. Sigh.
And the Spanish stuff got a little bit annoying, because for one thing, Spanish speakers don’t say De nada when they accidentally bump into someone, but Con permiso or Lo siento, or at least they did when I was taught Spanish in school. And Matias makes this really lame joke about Spaniards saying “Barthelona” instead of Barcelona. Again, sigh. Matias must be a Rerez fan.
No, That’s Amor isn’t a great movie or even a good one, but it is pleasant in a forgettable way.
That’s Amor is currently streaming on Netflix. Rated PG-13.
My grade: C+
Principal Cast: Riley Dandy, Isaac Gonzalez Rossi, Nancy Lenehan, Daniel Edward Mora, Brian Craig, Kimberley Drummond, Arlene Tur, Christina Moore, Suleka Mathew
Directed by: Shaun Paul Piccinino
Written by: Ali Afshar, John Ducey and Tiffany Dupont