Choose Love review: A fun premise with low stakes

❘ Published: 2023-08-31T13:49:38

Laura Marano and Avan Jogia in Choose Love

Netflix

Netflix’s new interactive movie Choose Love has premiered and, while the concept is fun, the plot stakes are surprisingly low.

What if you were able to see the outcome of the decisions you’re faced with in everyday life? What if life had an ‘undo’ button that allowed you to reset your choices? Well, Netflix‘s new rom-com Choose Love is here to answer those questions.

Starring Laura Marano, Avan Jogia, Jordi Webber, and Scott Michael Foster, the film follows Cami, a music producer who is faced with three romantic choices: a famous rockstar, the one who got away, and her reliable boyfriend.

The biggest, and most unique, selling point of the movie is that it allows viewers to control Cami’s life using clickable choice buttons featured on screen. However, though the concept is pretty fun, the stakes of the film don’t feel very important. Warning: slight spoilers for Choose Love below.

There’s no need to make a solid choice

From the very beginning of Choose Love, Cami is faced with a choice to receive good or bad news from her tarot card reading. While you might think picking either choice would lead to vastly different outcomes, she still receives the same romantic card reading no matter what choice you make for her.

Honestly, outside of two or three pivotal scenes concerning who Cami should end up with, none of the choices you make for her have much effect on the plot. Whether or not she throws a game night with her sister or tells a famous rockstar that his song sucks, it doesn’t impact her life in a way that changes the trajectory of the story.

With a quick tap of the ‘undo’ button, viewers can see what are essentially deleted scenes from Cami’s life and still get the same story.

Unlike it’s counterparts of Black Mirror: Bandersnatch or Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs the Reverend, Choose Love’s interactive portion doesn’t lead viewers through heart-pounding situations or comedic chaos.

No matter what choices you make for Cami, nothing feels impactful or long-lasting, so you might as well just watch both scenes play out before moving on with the film.

The choice for the man is blatantly obvious

When it comes to Cami’s romantic choices, they’re as cliché as you can get, which makes sense for this kind of rom-com. There’s Rex, the rebellious, bad boy rockstar, the charitable high school sweetheart Jack, and the long-term, good guy boyfriend Paul.

However, unlike most rom-coms, Choose Love doesn’t give viewers a real reason to root for anyone besides Cami’s boyfriend Paul. From the beginning, Paul is shown to be incredibly kind and caring, and he expresses genuine love for Cami. He doesn’t cheat on her or lead her on — he’s just a regular good dude.

Laura Marano and Scott Michael Foster in Choose Love

Because Paul is such a decent guy, the movie really doesn’t give you a reason to have Cami pick another guy outside of her just wanting to see what life is like on the other side.

It’s not the worst way to get a main character out of their solid relationship, but it does leave you scratching your head and wondering why Cami would want to throw away a good relationship for no reason.

While you do get to choose who she gets with in the end (kinda), the choice of who Cami’s leading man should be is pretty clear from the start and that makes choosing a bit tedious after a while. This is less “choose your own romantic adventure” and more “don’t throw away real love, dummy.”

Choose Love review score: 3/5

The consensus from Dexerto is that the movie is fine, but lacks the substance to have you rooting for any of the characters besides Paul.

Lucy-Jo Finnighan said: “It’s a fun little game, but the characters are very stock. Too one-dimensional to really care about, and the acting is fine (Paul is pretty good at the emotional parts), but the rest can feel quite like a Hallmark-movie.”

And Gabriela Silva stated: “My initial thought was ‘meh, okay.’ I felt like the other characters besides Paul didn’t give me much reason to choose them romantically.”

At the end of the day, for a cheesy, interactive rom-com, Choose Love certainly isn’t the worst Netflix has to offer. However, it’s better off delivering interactive films with real stakes or else viewers won’t be going back for a re-watch.

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