I think this may be a parody of the yoga and health craze culture, but even so, I pretty much hated it. Ironically, I was doing my hour of cardio while watching it so I stuck with it.
The script is just an accumulation of junk that makes no sense. There was a sequence that was within seconds of a full 2 minutes of the group howling (at the moon?) and trying to get Dana to howl. There were frequent knocks on healthy diet. Dana spent long portions of the movie in intentionally ridiculous sweatshirts. The retreat is in Canada, but Dana brought clothes for the South Pacific so Stefan finds her some warmer clothes in Lost and Found. So she wears a sweatshirt to a literal yoga sweat session and isn't decent underneath so she's stuck with it - but had she no tank tops or t-shirts in what she packed? Then later she's ready to sweat in a tank top but the head yogi holds a special "cold" session in a room set at 34 degrees F.
Dana's boyfriend breaks up with her during the literal hike (with luggage) to the retreat center from the bus. So she has no place to stay. The retreat leader tells her there are no rooms and then charges her $200/night for a storage closet, even though she presumably already paid something for the retreat. She's told there is no transit out of there til the end of the week. Seems like that's the time for Dana to say "Either get me back to civilization or put me up for a reasonable charge or I'll make you miserable until you do." But no, this top notch investigative reporter just accepts it all.
These are examples of what kind of comedy this movie had.
Toward the end, Dana gets in arguments with her boss and Stefan about ethics. Dana tried to be self-righteous and principled, and her boss tried to be no-compromise, but they were both contradictory and at times both wrong. Dana was right and her boss wrong about one thing - you don't go back on your word to a source, at least you shouldn't. But then, she was probably wrong to make the promise. In today's world, though, there is no right or wrong in "journalism" because "journalism" no longer exists. It's all about money and political agenda. In other words, that latter part of the movie was gibberish and made no sense other than trying to set up the love story.
I hesitate to judge acting in a parody where so much is about exaggeration. Amanda Schull and Morgan David Jones had some chemistry, but it got lost in the stupid story.
Romance Retreat
2019
Action / Romance
Romance Retreat
2019
Action / Romance
Plot summary
Dana Willingham is an investigative journalist with the Seattle True Press. She is assigned what may be the biggest story of her time at the publication: to investigate what looks to be a purposeful privacy breach by En-Cyke, the hottest new social media app on the market, with nothing truly known about the company owner/CEO, including no photos known of him in existence. With the help of her editor Catherine Fontes, Dana plans to write the article while she's on her first vacation since starting to work for the publication, it a week long couples yoga retreat to Bali with her boyfriend Jon, a yoga fanatic, who organized everything for the two of them. While Dana hates yoga - she who doesn't understand especially the spiritual aspect of the activity, she preferring to power though any problem rather than meditate - she loves the thought of an Indonesian beach vacation in winter, even if her main focus will still be writing the article while there. Nothing about the vacation turns out the way she wants, including having no electronic access and being surrounded by a bunch of happy granola types who love everything about the retreat that she hates. While he is still grounded into the physical and spiritual aspects of the retreat, it is the only single within the group - Stefan - that helps her with some of those issues, while she discovers that he is hiding key "non-yogaish" aspects of himself. Through her encounter with Stefan, Dana may come to a new enlightenment about herself and about the article which may be damaged if she and Stefan end up feeling they cannot trust the other, lack of trust in the world in general one of the reasons he came on the retreat.
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An accumulation of garbage
I thought this was adorable!
Amanda Schull is always a pleasant view, having successfully made the transition from Ballet career to acting. I wasn't familiar with the male lead, but he was up to the task. Even though you knew his identity at the outset, it did not diminish the enjoyment of a playful script. Who knew it would be so delightful to poke fun at yoga? The narration worked for me the best when it was Dana. When they briefly had Stefan providing VO, I was confused. It felt random and inconsistent. Overall, I laughed countless times and thoroughly enjoyed the romp. As a side note, I find it hilarious and very telling that the bad reviews on this site are riddled with spelling errors and inaccuracies--very hard to take seriously!
A clever romance well played.
Funny script especially for what people are assuming is a Hallmark-type movie. It has nothing much in common with your typical Hallmark or Hallmark-clone templates other than that it is a romantic comedy. It has some wit and a lot to say about the Yoga and new-age culture which it fondly sends up along with the journalistic tabloid ethic that will sacrifice truth and fairness in favor of click-bait.
Dana, a workaholic journalist is going on vacation with her fed-up-with-her boyfriend. Because she is so cluelessly obsessed with her career and her phone, rather than paying attention to real life, she thinks she is going to an Indonesian Beach while she ends up in the wilds of Canada with no cell service or internet. Amanda Shull does a great job, exposing our heroines unattractive traits and mindset while still making her likable. We root for her (while we are rolling our eyes at early her behavior) as her character changes and grows.
In Canada, she finally gets dumped by the guy that brung her due to her attitude and neglect. She ends up becoming friendly with an incognito tech genius/millionaire that she is coincidentally doing an expose' on. Hilarity and a sweet romance ensues.
Stefan, the love interest is played by Morgan David Jones who is either Tom "Draco Malfoy" Felton's doppelganger, or his better-looking older brother. I would be favorable disposed in his behalf because of this resemblance anyway, but his performance does not disappoint.
This is not a Hallmark movie. In addition to the witty and funny script and the out-of -the-box subject matter, The director is the late Steve DiMarco. He was a respected if eccentric television director of a legit and large body of work and not in the Hallmark "stable." He passed away last month. RIP. Please note the 2 contributions of the bitter reviewer who came on here solely to bash him. It makes one wonder.