Producers: Marty Bowen, Wyck Godfrey, John Fischer, Isaac Klausner and Adrián Guerra Director: Lasse Hallström Screenplay: Vera Herbert and Les Bohem Cast: Madelyn Cline, KJ Apa, Sofia Wylie, Madison Thompson, Josh Lucas, Orlando Norman and Marilyn Cutts Distributor: Amazon MGM Studios
Grade: C
Some stunning Spanish locations, beautifully shot by cinematographer Elías M. Félix, and two amiable leads in Madelyn Cline and KJ Apa, aren’t enough to save the soapy tale of young love director Lasse Hallström and screenwriters Vera Herbert and Les Bohem have derived from the 2017 novel by the prolific J.P. Monninger, whose books have some of the same appeal as Nicholas Sparks’ and John Green’s. “The Map That Leads to You” is a pretty, emotionally manipulative and in the end shallow romance cast in the form of a European road trip.
The tripper is Heather Mulgrew (Cline), on a jaunt to the continent along with her college pals Connie (Sofia Wylie) and Amy (Madison Thompson)—a post-graduation breathing space before taking on jobs in the real world. Heather’s the organized one, pushing her companions to breathlessly board the train to Barcelona just as it’s about to depart. Having found a seat, she’s introduced to Jack (Apa), a gregarious New Zealander. It’s a “cute” meeting, of course—she’s somewhat discomfited when he climbs onto the luggage rack above her to stay cool and rest. But they’re soon talking agreeably (over the fact that they’re both reading “The Sun Also Rises,” for instance), and by the time they disembark their flirtation has turned serious.
Jack, however, has arranged his trip not around tour guides but a journal kept by his grandfather, a World War II soldier who’d wandered the continent after the conflict’s end; he’s following in the footsteps of a beloved ancestor who, if the journal is any indication, was of a deeply poetic bent of mind. When the two bump into one another again serendipitously at a club, fate seems to have taken a hand. And when Amy, already nursing a broken heart, is robbed of her jacket and passport, Jack leads the girls, and helpful Raef (Orlando Norman), in tracking down the culprit and getting the stuff back—taking the opportunity to pocket a wad of cash they find in the crook’s apartment, which allows for more extravagant frolicking.
When the time comes for Heather to go back to the States with Connie and Amy, Jack persuades her to stay, and after assuring her concerned but supportive dad (Josh Lucas, literally phoning it in) that she knows what she’d doing, she remains with him. The plan is that following a final fling in Europe—which includes a visit with a colorful family his grandfather had gotten to know during his travels—Jack will come to America with her. But a complication arises when he’s injured running with the bulls in Pamplona and a sad secret from his past, revealed by the medical treatment he receives, leads him to disappoint her. Naturally that’s not the end of the relationship, however, with the journal providing the clue that brings about a bittersweet reunion.
The ensemble cast do everything they can to put across this saccharine Hallmark-quality sap, with Wylie, Thompson and Norman all pleasant enough as the friends who remain unfailingly supportive despite having troubles of their own. But it’s Cline and Apa who hold center stage, and they make an attractive pair, with her struggling over what’s more important to her, Jack or the job she’s supposed to go back to, and him finally able to use his New Zealand accent after spending years compelled to affect an American one as Archie Andrews and in a succession of mediocre movies. These are characters so hopelessly infatuated with other another from the moment they meet that you know the single moment that they argue—he criticizes tourists for taking selfies instead of emotionally embracing their surroundings, and she lambastes his pomposity—will pass away like the summer breeze.
Yet those who enjoy this sort of thing will probably find this “Map” worth following to the end despite its utter predictability. The locations are as lovely as the couple enthralled by them, and are beautifully photographed; Isona Rigau’s production design complements them; editors Brad Turner and Douglas Crise insert plenty of “aren’t we having fun?” montages into the mix; and Sarah Trevino’s score supplies the necessary tones of exuberance and/or sadness.
In his earlier, better days Hallström tried to insert some depth into his movies; here, as in his more recent work, he’s content to get by with easygoing surface gloss and heart-on-sleeve emotion. For some that will be enough.