Richard Crouse

“Float,” a new romance starring “Kim Convenience’s” Andrea Bang and “Upload’s” Robbie Amell, and now playing in theatres, is an old-fashioned romance about having to choose between family expectations and love.

Set during the summer before Waverly (Bang) is set to do a medical residency in Toronto, the story begins with the young protagonist making a detour from a planned visit with her parents in Taiwan. She hasn’t seen them in years, not since she began studying medicine in Chicago. “They make sure I have everything I need,” she says, “but they don’t really know me.”

At the last minute she detours, and stops over to visit with her hippie-ish aunt (Michelle Krusiec) in Tofino, British Columbia.

“I haven’t had time off since med school,” Waverly says. “Now is my chance. I haven’t told my parents”

It’s a rare impulsive move for Waverly, who until this point has followed a path in life predetermined by her mother and father.

When she almost drowns, charming and handsome lifeguard Blake (Amell) comes to her rescue. He’s a local, tethered to the town by family obligations. The two hit it off, and as Waverly settles into life in the beach town, Blake gives her swimming lessons.

“Why are you doing this?” she asks.

“I like spending time with you,” he says.

They fall in love, but will the expectations of Waverly’s parents prevent them from having a life together?

If you can’t figure out how “Float” ends, then you may want to rethink your Harlequin Book of the Month subscription. The escapist story, about finding a path forward in life using love as a compass, may be predictable, but writer and co-director (adapting a wildly successful Wattpad story by writer Kate Marchant) Sherren Lee provides just enough conflict between Waverly and her parents and Blake and his sister to keep the movie on a low dramatic simmer throughout.

This is a story about, as Waverly says, finding creating a logical family over a biological family. It’s about the joys of friendship and love, and opening oneself up to new experiences and people. To that end Lee casts an appealing supporting cast with King Bach, Rukiya Bernard, Sarah Desjardins, Ghazal Azarbad and Tristan Arthurs, playing members of Waverly’s supportive new family.

It’s fitting, that given the setting of the film, that “Float” is the equivalent of a summer beach read. Despite some clunky, earnest dialogue—”I want to stay here with you but I want to be a doctor,” sounds like a rejected line from a Hallmark movie—the movie does what it set out to do, put a new spin on a classic genre.