“The best way to learn a new language is to take on a lover who speaks it.”

Much like its meandering and vanilla lead character, Find Me Falling is a film with no tone or direction, and it’s one of the laziest movies I’ve seen this year. To make light of suicide in the opening scene is gross enough, and the story never really recovers from such a tasteless and sour moment. The script is awful, the acting largely uninspired, and the well-meaning message is hidden and hindered by a vehicle that never knows how to get out of neutral or which road to take. At least it’s pretty to look at.

We’re meant to believe that John Allman (Harry Connick Jr.) is a well-known worldwide rockstar, now escaping to the seaside of Cyprus in the Mediterranean for a little R&R, muting all the noise flooding in on poorly received last album. He buys a little home on a cliff, unaware that it’s a popular spot for locals to come and take their life; like I said, the film treats mental health and suicide as a punchline. From there the plot thickens as he meets a shopgirl named Melina (Ali Fumiko Whitney) who has a shared passion for singing, and romance spills through the air during a fateful dinner. John has been here before. Maybe he came back for a reason. It’s hard to care either way.

In one of the few honest moments in the film, John’s eyes catch Sia’s (Agni Scott, the only actor here who seems to be invested in playing things authentically) over a dinner, and it’s crystal clear this isn’t the first time they’ve met. But life happens, and tours took John all over the world before finding his way back to place and the person that inspired his most beloved song. The rest of the film unfolds the way you’d likely assume if you’ve ever seen a small budget romantic comedy before, adding confusion and hijinks and dramatic reveals with little to no effect each time.

It’s always head scratching to me when a film treats a fictional piece of art like something sacred but doesn’t take the time to actually make it any good. Not only does the often overlooked yet miscast here Harry Connick Jr. not feel like a galivanting rockstar for a single second, his big comeback song – a slow and monotonous ballad with alphabet soup lyrics – never convinces us that it’s the masterpiece to help him fill arenas once again. Even with all of the fake tattoos, John never feels like a rockstar. His romance never feels like destiny as it’s portrayed. And the movie never overcomes the mockery it makes of mental health issues for the sake of forced feelings. Find Me Falling is a 90 minute long postcard with a beautiful front and a unintelligible love letter written on the back. But like I said before, at least it’s pretty.

“Music is the love of your life.”

Rating: 1.5 out of 5