Man, the beginning of the year is a bit of a bummer movie-wise. I want to be talking about the newest romcoms but there isn’t a lot that has come out yet. At least I have all of the 2023 movies to go through. Like Netflix’s Love At First Sight, which came out in September.

Hadley (Haley Lu Richardson) is a 20-year old woman traveling to London for her father’s wedding. When she misses her flight, she meets Oliver (Ben Hardy), a 22-year old British Yale student who is traveling to London for his mother’s memorial party. The two end up sitting next to each other for the six hour flight. They fall in love and try to reconnect once they have landed.

When I saw how slowly this movie began, I dreaded having to sit through it for 90 minutes. Thankfully, the pace does pick up once they get on the plane. This is based on a book, which I have not read, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that is where the slower pace comes from. In a book, you can go through a person’s history in a fascinating way. In a movie, when you have a third-party narrator telling you about a person’s history, it doesn’t have quite the same kick.

I am happy to say that once we got through the “who are these people” parts, Love At First Sight turned into a cute romcom. I liked watching Hadley and Oliver interacting with each other more than with other people. They seemed a little too self-centered when they weren’t together. And I would have liked it if the ending gave us more than just additional narration telling us what happens to them after the movie ends. A montage of pictures would have been nice. Despite all of that, the movie was decent. Probably not worth more than one watch though.

Rating: B