Miami Love Affair (2017) User Reviews

Some Things Work But Most Don't

[larrys3 · 3/10 · 8 January 2020]

This indie focuses on the interconnecting storylines and characters in the final few days before the Miami Art Fair, in the trendy Wynwood section of Miami.

I wish I could say these storylines were engaging but it just seemed to me most of the dialogue and situations fell flat. Thus, the movie on the whole just didn't work for me.

I thought some of the tropical and colorful atmospherics of Miami came through well here, but I wish there had been more of those scenes.

Don't expect to see a lot of the late Burt Reynolds here, as his screen time is limited, and in those few scenes that he's in he appears to be physically struggling.

Overall, a few things work in this film but most don't. Thus the rather low rating.

Very much a first attempt

[name99-92-545389 · 4/10 · 6 December 2019]

Look, it tries hard. But it just never achieves liftoff; everything ultimately fails :-(

This movie is trying to be another Manhattan or LA Story, a love letter to a city. It's a cute idea, but execution is amateur.

Most of the actors are amateurs and boy, does it show. I'm not an acting snob -- I'm happy with the performances of Kate Upton or Jean Claude van Damme in the right material -- so when I say acting is bad, I'm talking porno "I am so sorry but I do not have enough money to pay for this pizza" level clumsy acting.

Then the city is not an active enough character in the movie, even though that is the starting premise. We don't get enough variety and enough exterior shots to get a sense of Miami; and most of the main characters are not even locals, so we also don't get a sense of Miami sensibility, the way Manhattan and LA Story worked. There's no feeling of love for the locality.

Finally the storylines are just horribly cliched. The gold-digging woman who loses her man by demanding status rather than love. The manic pixie dream girl who shows the stuffy German how to loosen up. The manipulative shrew who treats art as a commodity to be advertised and sold. They've all been done before, and done so much better. If you're going to do them again, give us SOMETHING different.

So yeah. Nothing worth watching here. EXCEPT to marvel at the technical quality that's now enabled by digital photography and editing, and cheap cameras. The actors may not be very good. But they're in focus, well-lit, and color matched in every scene. Not bad for what was, I expect, a fairly low budget.