drama, Gabby Kono-Abdy, Isabelle Furhman, Jane Stiles, Jennifer Grey, Jimmie Fails, Jordan Gavaris, Josh Carras, Julia Stiles, Kelsey Grammer, Mena Massoud, movies, New York City, reviews, Wish You Were Here
February 20, 2025
by Carla Hay
Directed by Julia Stiles
Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City, the dramatic film “Wish You Were Here” (based on the novel of the same name) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans, Asians and Latin people) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A restaurant worker and an artist meet and quickly fall in love, but their relationship is tested when he reveals a big secret.
Culture Audience: “Wish You Were Here” will appeal mainly to people who fans of the movie’s headliners and extremely sappy romance stories.
“Wish You Were Here” drowns in a cesspool of schmaltz and a manipulative plot reveal. It’s very possible for people to fall in love as quickly as the movie’s characters do, but none of it looks believable in this dull romance. The movie also tries to look like a modern love story, but many of the story’s ideas are stuck in an old-fashioned and backwards mindset that just because someone gives you a lot of compliments on a first date, that must be true love.
“Wish You Were Here” is the feature-film directorial debut of Julia Stiles, who is best known for being an actress who has starred in movies such as several Jason Bourne movies, 2001’s “Save the Last Dance” and 2019’s “Hustlers.” “Wish You Were Here” is based on Renée Carlino’s 2017 novel of the same name. Stiles and Carlino co-wrote the awful “Wish You Were Here” screenplay.
In “Wish You Were Here,” 29-year-old Charlotte is a bachelorette who is cynical about her chances of finding true love. She works as a server at a Mexican restaurant in New York City, and she dislikes her dead-end job. (“Wish You Were Here” was actually filmed in New Jersey and in Florida.)
On one particular night, Charlotte and her talkative best friend/roommate Helen (played by Gabby Kono-Abdy) are on the stoop of their apartment building when they meet painter artist Adam (played by Mena Massoud), while he’s walking down their street one night because he appears to be lost. Quicker than you can say “corny romantic movie,” Adam asks Charlotte out on a date, where they go to a local bar. After a lot of flirtation initiated by Adam, he invites Charlotte to spend the night with him at his loft apartment. She hesitates at first but then says yes.
During their date, Charlotte makes up a story about how she and Adam met five years ago and have been in a relationship all along. She adds details as the night goes on, while Adam plays along with this charade. It’s supposed to be cute and romantic, but it’s over-used to cloying effect in this movie. Adam heaps compliments on her repeatedly by telling Charlotte that she’s beautiful.
The next morning after their sleepover date, Adam acts a little aloof, as if he thinks he made a mistake by sleeping with Charlotte on their first date. Adam somewhat coldly tells Charlotte, “You’re not really my girlfriend.” Charlotte looks hurt but she’s trying not to let it show because she barely knows Adam and doesn’t want to be too clingy. Still, it’s obvious that Charlotte thought that she and Adam had something more special than casual sex.
Adam later tells Charlotte that he’s sorry for being so rude to her on the morning after they first hooked up. He starts romancing her again. On their first date, he asked Charlotte to help him paint a graffiti mural on a nearby street. As the relationship between Charlotte and Adam progresses, he adds more illustrations to this mural. The movie implies that Adam is doing well-enough in selling his art that he can afford his spacious loft apartment.
It doesn’t take long for Charlotte and Adam to declare their love for each other. But in a mushy movie like “Wish You Were Here,” Adam has a big tearjerker secret that he eventually reveals to Charlotte. Their relationship goes through ups and downs because he doesn’t know how to tell her this secret. The trailer for “Wish You Were Here” shows obvious indications about Adam’s secret, but more details are in the movie.
Adam acts “hot and cold” with Charlotte. Sometimes he’s effusive with his romantic actions and comments, while other times he acts like he doesn’t want to get too close to Charlotte. She’s also unsure if Adam’s neighbor friend Stacy (played by Jane Stiles), who lives in Adam’s apartment building, is someone he used to date. During all of the lovey-dovey talk between Charlotte and Adam, they don’t bother to discuss any past love relationships, which should naturally come up in conversations if Charlotte and Adam were a realistic couple getting closer to each other.
During a period of time when Adam is avoiding Charlotte, she decides to move on and date other people. Charlotte meets a nice guy named Seth (played by Jimmie Fails) on a dating app. On their first date, Seth invites Charlotte to watch him do his side job as a mascot for a non-NFL football team during one of the team’s practice sessions. Helen is there to keep Charlotte company, in case Charlotte’s date with Seth isn’t very good.
Seth’s best friend is a somewhat dorky guy named Roddy (played by Josh Carras), who is also at this football practice. Roddy has an instant mutual attraction to Helen. Within minutes of meeting each other, Helen and Roddy start kissing each other passionately in public. And after Helen and Roddy have their first date together, he asks Helen to move in with him, and she says yes. Helen gleefully tells Charlotte this news after coming home from the date.
“Wish You Were Here” is so badly written, there’s a scene where Charlotte comes home and sees a mover truck outside, with movers loading some of Helen’s things in the truck. Charlotte is shocked that Helen is moving out, even though a few scenes earlier, Helen clearly told Charlotte that she was moving out to live with Roddy.
Helen and Charlotte have a little bit of argument over Helen moving out because Charlotte feels like Helen is abandoning Charlotte. Helen and Charlotte were also co-workers at the same restaurant in the beginning of the movie. But Helen soon quits that job after moving in with Roddy.
And what about Helen’s share of the rent now that she’s moving out of the apartment that Helen and Charlotte were sharing? Not to worry, Helen tells Charlotte. Helen has arranged for someone else to move in and be Charlotte’s new roommate: Charlotte’s younger brother Chucky (played by Jordan Gavaris), who has a rocky relationship with Charlotte because Charlotte and Chucky get on each other’s nerves.
“Wish You Were Here” plods along with Charlotte being unhappy in her restaurant job, uncomfortable about living with Chucky, and worried about her relationship with Adam. Fuhrman and Fails are perfectly adequate in their roles, but other performances in the movie ether fall flat or are too exaggerated. Massoud’s acting often looks too forced, which is why the love scenes between Charlotte and Adam don’t have genuine-looking chemistry.
Characters in the movie are varying levels of annoying. Charlotte pretends to be jaded, but she’s really just a big romantic softie at heart. Helen comes across as flaky and hyper. Adam is more than a little manipulative in how he jerks Charlotte’s emotions around. But all is supposed to be forgiven as soon as Adam’s secret is revealed and he turns into someone who’s “destined” to have Charlotte’s love.
Jennifer Grey and Kelsey Grammer have awkwardly written roles as Charlotte’s unnamed parents, who worry that time is running out for Charlotte to get married and have children. Charlotte’s mother is more of a meddler than Charlotte’s father. Remember, Charlotte is 29, not 39, but this movie acts like she’s some type of “bitter old maid” who needs to find a man who can make her happy.
“Wish You Were Here” has too many romantic fantasies that shut out a lot of realities. For example, almost nothing is told about Adam’s family except when he briefly mentions his family to Charlotte after he tells Charlotte his secret. Charlotte doesn’t even seem curious about some basic things about her romantic partner that people who are truly in love would want to know about each other if there’s talk of them spending their lives together.
“Wish You Were Here” wants to be like a classic romantic film, but it just fizzles with formulaic sappiness where everything looks and sounds too contrived and fake. Much of the dialogue is cringeworthy and doesn’t sound like how real people would talk. As for Adam’s secret, it’s badly mishandled and shoehorned into the plot to make this dubious romance look like true love, when it actually looks like phony and misguided infatuation.
Lionsgate released “Wish You Were Here” in select U.S. cinemas on January 17, 2025.