My Review of "Then Came You"

Then Came You came out quietly back in 2020. It's a romantic comedy set in Scotland. The two leads in this movie are of an older generation. This gives us a very different perspective in the romantic comedy genre. Some of the jokes may go over the heads of some of some generations because there are references to older movies in this movie that only some will understand.

The movie starts out with our main protagonist Annabelle. Her husband had passed away the year before and she had finally decided to make a new life for herself. She packs some clothes and a chocolate box that contains the ashes of her husband and leaves Nantucket for good.

Upon arrival she meets Howard. He owns a magnificent castle of a home but is renting it out for vacationers. Unfortunately for Howard, it seems that he's fallen under hard times so it looks like it's up to him to maintain the whole castle by himself and a friend. Seeing the scope of the castle you can understand how much of a daunting task this might be.

The two don't really hit it off right away. While Annabelle is wide eyed and in awe of everything that she sees in Scotland, Howard is a little bit of a grump. He's basically over anything that goes around in Scotland because he sees it everyday. I guess this is understandable. This is also how a typical romantic comedy starts off and we kind of know how it's going to go.

The thing is that the conflict in the second and third act of the movie don't really seem consequential. They just sort of just happen. There are a few things that happen throughout the movie that don't really have a story arc in there. They just seem like moments in the movie that happen for the heck of it. There's no huge build up for any of them. Even something that's supposed to be a big thing that happens close to the end of the movie wasn't that impactful. I kind of forgot that it was supposed to be a thing and then when it happened I though, oh yeah that's right.

These unfortunate parts of the movie kind of dragged on a bit and made the movie a little boring at times. It is a significant chunk of the movie and I think with the right editing or maybe with some additional reshoots this could have been done correctly.

Even the setting of the movie wasn't really a big deal when I think they should have made it into a bigger deal. Usually when American movies are set in a foreign place like Scotland more emphasis would be placed on interesting shots to highlight the scenery of the location. There are hardly any any crazy locale cinematography throughout this movie. There's a few nice scenes with the castle but that's about it.

What this movie does have going for it are the charismatic leads. You can see some chemistry between the main characters and they have a nice spark with one another.

Some of the better scenes consist just the two leads bantering with one another. I thought that some of the cultural misunderstandings of one another was quite funny. They could have added more of this and I think people would have really eaten this movie up. There were very interesting and funny talking points and I have to commend the writers on this.

Although some people of certain generations might not understand some of the references they're getting at in their conversations. That's okay though. This movie isn't geared towards a younger audience. The target demographic for this movie is for an older audience.

This is also an interesting take on romantic comedies because it focuses on two advanced aged characters. It's an interesting stage in their lives. It almost seems as though both of the main characters have already completed such huge stages of their lives and ready to go into retirement and trying to figure out the rest of their lives. Not all of us are at that stage in our lives but we can see that this may happen to us eventually.

Overall, I liked this movie but with the uneven story telling I can't give it great recommendations. I really wished they focused more of the banter between the two leads rather than trying to figure out how the story arc can fit the typical romantic comedy formula. I have to give this movie a 5 out of 10. There are really good elements to this movie but they're shadowed by the confused pacing of the movie.