Critic Reviews

There are no real surprises here, except maybe one. It would never work, Finley warns us, and it seems she might as well be talking about this cornball movie. But thanks to something ineffable — Redgrave, leprechauns, moondust, or maybe just understated performances from two appealing protagonists — Finding You kinda, sorta does.

Effervescent performances from an ebullient ensemble make Finding You a palatable and compelling female coming-of-age tale.

I was intrigued to find that Finding You was not produced by an AI romance plot generator, but an actual book — Jenny B. Jones’ 2011 YA novel, There You’ll Find Me.

It’s not just a film that feels crafted by Mad Libs, but possibly by a middling A.I. with a soft spot for both “Notting Hill” and cinematic artifice that mistakes contrivances for drama and evolution.

The scenery’s gorgeous, Redgrave and Bergin are pros, Tom Everett Scott is fittingly gross as the selfish stage dad and Goodacre has some charm. But the film forgot to graft a personality onto its protagonist and seems so determined to be PG-clean that sparks between the leads are … hard to “find.”

Although the main characters in this romantic tale are meant to be just over 18, this Sky Movies release is manifestly aimed at a much younger market with its sex-free storyline and nice-girls-finish-first morality.

In short, domestic viewers in search of outrage may find themselves a tad disappointed.

The supporting players are more interesting than the leads, who never make us care about them or root for them. And it’s fascinating to watch a brilliant talent like Redgrave and a game hoofer like Bergin try to lift this dead weight all by themselves.

It’s as if Finding You was written by a computer program that studied 2000s rom-coms, taking the worst tropes and clunkily blending them together.