“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.
“Vacation Friends,” a new rude and raunchy comedy now streaming in Disney+, is a riff on the old saying, ‘Whatever happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.” But instead of Vegas, the setting is Mexico, and instead of leaving bad behavior behind, Marcus (Lil Rel Howery) and Nancy (Anna Maria Horsford) would like to leave their new “friends” Ron (John Cena) and Kyla (Meredith Hagner) behind.
Strait-laced construction boss Marcus wants to surprise his girlfriend Nancy with a marriage proposal at a fancy Mexican resort. To set the scene he books a beautiful hotel room, iced champagne and rose pedals strewn around the bedroom. Unfortunately, the big surprise is something he didn’t plan, a flood. The jacuzzi upstairs in the Presidential Suite overflowed, turning Marcus and Nancy’s dream vacation room into a soggy wasteland.
With no other rooms available, the pair accept an offer to bunk with perfect strangers Ron and Kyla, the party animals in the Presidential Suite. The two couples are polar opposites. Marcus and Nancy are kinda conservative vs. the thrill-seeking Ron and Nancy who rim their Margueritas with cocaine. They are thrown together by circumstance but a few gallons of tequila later they’re all “vacation friends,” and the Mexican adventure culminates with a wild, blackout night.
“You guys are in our lives now,” Ron says as they part ways at the airport. “Nothing can change that. I’ll remember this week forever.”
Marcus and Nancy, however, aren’t feeling the bond. “They we’re kind of fun on vacation,” Marcus says, “But not in the real world.”
The real world includes the high-end wedding Marcus and Nancy are throwing with the financial aid of Nancy’s tightly-wound parents. Ron and Kyla aren’t on the guest list… but that doesn’t stop them from bringing their own brand of chaos to Marcus and Nancy’s big day.
“Vacation Friends” is a sweet-natured film about friendship but is far racier than the usual Disney+ fare. Drugs and drinking are the bedrock of the Ron and Kyla’s vacation lifestyle so this one isn’t for the kids, even if it’s on Mickey’s channel.
Adults, though, should get a mild kick out of the odd couple buddy comedy. Howery and Horsford are the movie’s bedrock, Cena and Hagner, the wild cards. Together, the ensemble play-off one another, creating fun, situational comedy that takes advantage of Cena’s manchild persona and Howery’s tightly wound Marcus. Hagner draws some of the biggest laughs with Kyla’s disregard for the niceties of polite society.
“Vacation Friends” is lightweight but sweet and should provide a much-needed getaway from real life.