See You on Venus

Grade: B

I am beginning to learn an interesting thing about what makes a Young Adult piece of work so appealing (whether it be a book or movie). For an A like me who isn’t so Y anymore, one of these, if done well, can transport me back to that period. It always makes me revisit the summer of 2000. 19 years old. Not doing much except working a lot, seeing my best friend a few times a week to watch The Simpsons and play music, and going to the movies by myself followed by a solo meal at a 24/7 Steak ‘n’ Shake at weird hours. Single. Lonely. Left to think “maybe one day” – but in the meantime, I could live vicariously through unrealistic but heartwarming romantic comedies.

A movie like See You on Venus has a premise that isn’t going to win any credibility contests, but we need our setup. Our gateway to the beautiful locations and even lovelier cast members. The increasingly enchanting Virginia Gardner is too good, in every way, to be stuck in the YA genre. She needs to break away from that and do a real movie. Fall, the first thing I saw her in, was more like a thrill ride than a movie, but I quite liked it. Otherwise, until then, she’s in the business of singlehandedly rescuing films from the swamp. See You on Venus would have been lame forgettable trash with any other star, as would Beautiful Disaster – Gardner’s previous movie. Yet here I am giving BOTH a favorable review. And maybe this genre sometimes isn’t so bad. I’ve got the fever.

Our main players in See You on Venus are 18-year-olds Kyle (Alex Aiono) and Mia (Gardner). Kyle has been nursing guilt for a car accident that didn’t end well for a couple of his friends in the vehicle with him. The Mia character has a secret we eventually find out halfway through. It’s of the terminal variety. Think The Fault in Our Stars. She is an orphan who has bounced around foster homes all her life. She is about to go to Spain in the hopes of finding her birth mother. Her best friend was supposed to go with her, but is…no longer available to join, due to a plot coincidence that you might be able to guess just by reading this paragraph. She happens to be at the park at the same time Kyle is there, about to end his life. She stops him. This is their Meet Cute, where she invites Kyle to Spain with him. And he goes.

Virginia Gardner’s Mia is an adorable, persistent, almost annoying flirt, to the point where you want to yell “Why is it taking you so long to be receptive to this?” to Kyle through the screen. Director Joaquín Llamas sometimes paces his scenes in confusing, problematic ways. There’s a scene out in the town where Mia is having a hard time and needs some space, so she walks away. We cut to Kyle waiting by the van they’ve rented. Apparently a lot of time has elapsed, but we don’t know that, as it’s a quick cut. There’s another part where he’s waiting for her at dinner, and she hasn’t shown up yet. It appears that he looks up, and sees someone who looks exactly like him walking toward him through a door. But no, it was just a new scene where he’s entering the hotel room.

See You on Venus expects us to believe so many things, like Kyle’s dad willingly giving him his credit card for anything he needs on the trip to Spain. Or how a teenager can afford to fly overseas. Or why someone who looks like Virginia Gardner would fly overseas with a boy she just met, and be so fearlessly flirtatious with him. Seems too good to be true. Or how they were going to handle the billing for those unexpected hospitalizations. Quibbles. Nit-picks. We’re not supposed to “go there” with a film like this. As entertainment and escapism, See You on Venus does its job. There were moments where I was absolutely spellbound, and I admit, others where I think I had something in my eye.

Grade: B