Villa Amore: Movie Review

A lovely romance that gets the details right.

Sometimes Hallmark gets the little details right, and it is such a breath of fresh air when that happens. The Villa Amore filmmakers did their homework, and got all the details right – taking a real Italian initiative and turning it into as realistic a romance as possible (for the genre). You have to allow for some movie-only characters but the plot is reasonable that everything just easily falls into place.		2025 Directed by: Clare Niederpruem Screenplay by: Alexandre Coscas, Nick Hopkins, Tim James Starring: Eloise Mumford, Kevin McGarry
Liara (Eloise Mumford) is an American about to get married and mourning the death of her father, when her fiancée dumps her at the altar, she travels to the Italian town where her parents met. While there, she find the house they wanted to buy is for sale for 1 Euro. It seems a bit too good to be true, but Liara buys it anyways, despite not reading the contract because it was written in Italian. This premise is real, Italian towns that are falling into disarray are selling dilapidated villas for 1 Euro. I had researched all the details earlier this year when the Netflix romantic dramedy La Dolce Villa came out with the identical premise. That movie took that premise but got all the details wrong and presented a completely illogical plot. I am so happy to report that Villa Amore gets all the details right, such that they can put a relatively realistic spin on the premise, at least a logical one. It's now up to Liara to fix up the place, and a tourist visa issue that she’s up against. Luckily she meets lawyer-turned-handyman Leo (Kevin McGarry) who helps her with every aspect of her new significant venture. The audience knows the genre and knows where this is headed, but that is definitely part of the movie’s charms. Their relationship naturally develops over the run-time of the movie, they are never antagonistic towards each other, and they are absolutely adorable together. It’s an easy to watch romance, if only guys like Leo exist in real life; unfortunately, the lawyer-turned-handyman character is an invention of Hallmark that has transcended to all TV and movie and romances. After getting all the plot details accurate, it probably shouldn’t be surprising that Villa Amore is fairly well written. It hits all the expected plot turns, but does so with honesty and more comedy than these romances typically have. The drama is contained to the plot (not manufactured by characters which I despise) and inherent in the issues with not reading a contract (hey, all Hallmark have to be a little stupid), so everything moves along easily and is a nice comfort watch. It was also at least partially filmed in Italy, and I am sure it will inspire countless impulsive trips to Italy where villas are on sale for 1 Euro.

Or Something Similar But Different:

  La Dolce Villa (2025) - Some really lovely moments and a whole lot of nonsense.

  A Chance Encounter (2022) - Stay and soak in the beauty of love in Sicily.