The recent romantic drama, Four Letters of Love, is a literary endeavor, based on the novel by Niall Williams. However, while Williams’ book might be flushed with the breathless nature of first romance, the film adaptation is bogged down by an atтιтude that tends toward the self-serious. Despite the top billing of Pierce Brosnan and Helena Bonham Carter, it’s Ann Skelly and Fionn O’Shea who take center stage as Isabel and Nicholas in the project. Set against the backdrop of Ireland in the 1970s, Four Letters of Love relies far more on its atmosphere than its plodding story.

Brosnan and Bonham Carter are only two of the many faces audiences will recognize in Four Letters of Love, though for all the talent attached to the romance, few of the actors get much to do. With plenty of silent brooding and quiet ruminations, but little action, Four Letters of Love makes the audience feel as if they’re missing something. By the time our protagonists get together, it’s easy to wonder when exactly they fell in love. Though we know the characters will fall for each other from the start, the movie takes its time getting to the meat of the narrative.

Four Letters Of Love’s Story Falls Short Of The Setting’s Majesty

Despite A Gorgeous Atmosphere, The Dramas Never Feel As Sweeping As The Landscape

If there’s one aspect that recommends Four Letters of Love, it’s the atmosphere and gorgeous settings that the movie takes full advantage of. As Nicholas and Isabel slowly circle each other, never quite meeting in Dublin and Isabel’s island off the Western coast, they demonstrate more of a love for the rugged settings of their youths than each other or anyone else they know. With lives marred by tragedy and upheaval, they look to their parents for guidance and support, but the older generation is just as lost.

A faith-forward story about love, miracles, and the inevitability of fate, Four Letters of Love expects the audience to believe our protagonists are meant to be together for inexplicable reasons, rather than any tangible chemistry or connection. Similarly, because all the individuals onscreen look first to God to dictate their choice and behavior, there is a distinct lack of agency and motivation in everyone’s actions. The audience, like the characters, comes to feel like a pᴀssive observer of lives that have already been written, taking the wind out of the potential for tension or stakes.

Being so deeply tied to religion is an aspect that will appeal to some audiences and turn off others. However, no matter how the viewer feels about fate and destiny, it can’t be argued that the movie is quick to rely on its devotion as an answer to the narrative’s many questions rather than crafting a story that makes sense and follows the rules of cause and effect. I’m all for the suspension of disbelief, especially when it comes to romance, but even I have my limits.

Four Letters of Love is also unafraid to take its sweet time getting Isabel and Nicholas in the same room, and painting their love story as something that happened to them, not that they created for themselves. A central romance in film is only as good as the time the couple spends together proving their chemistry and compatibility; the fun they have together. If Nicholas hadn’t appeared in Isabel’s life by chance, taking on the role of an unexpected angel, they would have no reason to be together, making it impossible to care if they make it work or not.

Four Letters Of Love Argues That We Can’t Control Our Fate, We Can Only Succumb To It

This Slightly Maudlin Perspective Is Not The Uplifting Triumph The Story Thinks It Is

Through a more deft narrative, the release of control and embrace of the interconnectedness of humanity might feel like a cathartic release in Four Letters of Love. However, the supposed proof the audience is given to demonstrate Isabel and Nicholas’s invisible string is more of a tacked-on afterthought than a satisfying reveal. The film seems to know its romance plot is lacking, as it focuses most of its time on crafting two opposing but equally тιԍнт-knit family dynamics. There’s a kernel of truth about the cost and sacrifice required to make art, but this is lost in the shuffle.

Unfortunately, like the love story, the parent-child relationships unfold entirely as expected in Four Letters of Love, and it’s occasionally easy to hate the parents for the clear misery they visit on their children. While it can be profoundly moving to follow the story of people’s small but important everyday lives, the film loses both the audience and its momentum by the final act when things should be heating up the most. Four Letters of Love will appeal to the romantics out there for its desire to believe love is written in the stars, but it won’t win any points for storytelling.

Four Letters of Love will be available to watch in theaters on July 25.