Hallmark’s Fall Into Love lineup continues with Retreat to You, an outdoors-y romance between two estranged high school friends who unexpectedly reconnect at a wellness retreat — which is a spa, not code for rehab. Can you imagine a Hallmark romance set at a rehab facility? Give them time! As for the actual movie in question — will Retreat to You leave you feeling relaxed and refreshed or will it leave you with a headache and anxiety?
The Gist: Emilie Ullerup (Chesapeake Shores) plays Abby, a stressed out public defender who’s accompanying her bestie Rachel (Sex/Life’s Meghan Heffern) to a luxurious wellness retreat for a weekend of rest, relaxation, and lots of moving on from Rachel’s ex-boyfriend. It isn’t until much later that Abby realizes she’s been duped! Everything is fine with Rachel! Rachel’s actually taking Abby on this trip because she is such a stressed out mess! Abby gives in and goes along with the itinerary, even if it does involve too much nature. And then she notices Sean (Burden of Truth’s Peter Mooney).
It turns out that Sean and Abby were inseparable best friends back in high school, but the two haven’t seen each other nor spoken since graduation. Abby wants nothing to do with Sean, but Rachel is dying to know more. Is Sean the monster that Abby says he is? Can Sean and Abby kiss and make up — or, in their case, make up and kiss? And, uh, just hypothetically — what happens if you stray from a designated trail at a wellness retreat and end up lost in the woods with no gear and no way to contact anyone? I’m asking for Abby and Sean.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: It starts out as a kind of Couples Retreat-y and then it turns into Hallmark’s version of the Netflix reality series Outlast.
Performance Worth Watching: The wellness retreat’s head counselor Randy (Joe Pickett’s Chris Gauthier) is a prim, proper, excitable, touchy-feely, ascot-wearing gentleman who writes spooky stories about the “ghost of a railway tycoon who haunts Jeff Bezos.” Needless to say, I love Randy.
Memorable Dialogue: After being subjected to horseback riding and goat yoga, Abby wonders aloud, “What is the obsession with livestock around here?”
Our Take: Retreat to You is two-thirds of a fun Hallmark movie. When it’s working, it’s a smart yet goofy character-driven romcom with lots of solid one-liners and some fantastic specifics (see: the Jeff Bezos line above). Those sequences are the ones set at the wellness retreat. That situation is so ripe with comedic possibility — it’s a place that serves spinach papaya smoothies and calls meals “nourishment gatherings.” Drop a no-nonsense cynic like Abby in there and you have a movie. All of her interactions with Randy are fantastic, especially her asking “Does nobody else work here?” after he keeps popping up to instruct courses. There’s also lots for BFF Rachel to do, potentially, as she strikes up a flirtation with the sexy chef (Kung Fu’s Donald Heng). Best friends usually get shortchanged in these movies, so we’re here to see Rachel get a love story of her own.
Retreat to You starts to struggle when Abby and Sean get lost in the woods. What seems initially like a comical detour, as Abby and Sean try to survive in a situation they are completely unprepared for, slowly turns into the entire middle portion of the movie. Maybe this section would have worked better had it not kicked off with them more or less addressing their major issue 30 minutes into the movie. It leaves them with too little to talk about or work through, and you end up just wishing they were back at the retreat trying to have a conversation during a forced silent disco or sneaking out after hours to try to find candy.
There’s a lot of potential in the idea of going to a retreat designed to relax you only to run into your ex-best friend who ghosted you some 20 years earlier. We could have had a lot more fun with Abby either giving in to her frustrations or trying to take in Randy’s ridiculous therapy only to be foiled by the appearance of Sean. As Retreat to You plays out, it rather quickly smoothes out the rough edges of Sean and Abby’s relationship and then skips out on the retreat altogether. Maybe I’m cranky and need a retreat myself, or maybe I just wanted to see more goat yoga.
Our Call: SKIP IT. Retreat to You starts out strong, but like Abby and Sean, it ends up wandering too far off the path.