Directed By Charles and Daniel Kinnane

Starring – Kevin James, Nicole Grimaudo, Kim Coates

The Plot – A wedding disaster leaves groom, Matt (James) stranded in Rome, heartbroken in the world’s happiest city. But with one determined local, Gia (Grimaudo) and a few meddling vacation couples in his corner, his ruined honeymoon becomes an adventure he never expected. Because sometimes heartbreak is just the first chapter of a better story.

Rated PG for some suggestive material, brief adult language, violence and smoking

SOLO MIO Official Trailer (2026)

POSITIVES

Those lovesick couples seeking the perfect date movie could honestly do a lot worse than Solo Mio, whose sweetly sincere and compassionately classy tender sentiment not only disarms the audience with the kind of charmingly affectionate feel-good romance that illustrates love’s most uplifting of energies, but also enacts the warmth and thorough cultural essence of its on-site setting, essentially conjuring something earnestly endearing for every demographic of its paying audience. The script from the Kinnane’s and even James, genuinely dabbles in the comfort food familiarity of its established romantic comedy captivity, checking off each of the subgenre’s expected cliches in ways that plays like a greatest hits collection for those who grew up on these kinds of movies, but it also refuses to feel mean-spirited or artificially saccharine in ways that intentionally or unintentionally manipulate the movie’s emotionality with feelings that it never earns within the interpretation of the audience, instead stitching together enough morality and meaning in the depths of its thematic exploration, which coherently zeroes in on the complexities of dating and marriage, even from those with many years and even tiers to their respective relationships. For Matt, there’s certainly elements of humility that stem from being stranded at the alter, which the movie utilizes to flesh out the awkwardness of an isolation factor to a tense environment overwhelmed by those living in the moment of their own unwavering connection, but the Kinnane’s also imbed this indulging element to Matt and Gia’s blossoming dynamic that not only helps overcome the initial language barrier between them, but also tangibly makes it feel like a foundation built simultaneously on attraction and introspective balance, allowing the spontaneity of their random meeting feel earth-shattering every bit as it does eye-opening to what each of them demanded from themselves before finding the happiness from the other. Beyond the script, the film is also blessed by some breathtaking scenery and cultural splendor of the Italian traditionalism, particularly those warmly glowing moments around the dinner table of an unexpected host during the third act that strikes such a merited meaning towards the more important things in life. The scene isn’t overwrought with spoon-fed sentiments or manufactured direction, but rather corresponding nourishment between its characters that transcend the commercialism of paid vacations and adventurous attractions, and between the candidness of Jared Fadel’s inviting cinematography and reconfigured Italian enveloping involving instantly familiar pop ballads to Joy Ngiaw’s geographically relevant score, the film conjures a distinct brand of creative personality that is definitely among the most ambitiously explorative of Angel Studios brief but storied cinematic run. If this isn’t enough, Kevin James makes the most of another starring role in the mainstream eye, this time with a more physically restrained brand of acting that requires more emotionality out of the gentle giant than we would expect against the backdrop of his most popular roles. James gentility certainly helps evoke the much-needed empathy out of the audience, particularly during such a gut-wrenching opening act of paralyzing sensitivity for the character, but his most proven commodity turns out to be the softer and quieter side of his demeanor, which allows us ample opportunity into the expressionism of his facial acting, and with some already instantly enamoring chemistry shared between Matt and Gia, providing the warmth for the movie’s surmising love, we are clued into more evidence of James’ emotional versatility as a leading actor.

NEGATIVES

While James’ opting for more of a dramatically straight enveloping might serve his career forecast optimistically, it does little for the comedy side of the movie’s romantic comedy equation, in turn leaving a film driven by romance flawed by the lack of effective gags that should help balance it from feeling heavily one-dimensional. Relief definitely comes from the script not attempting these unnecessarily inauthentic skits of situational humor that would typically call upon James to clumsily humiliate himself in one way or another, but there’s such an unidentifiable influence to anything materialistically that the Kinnane’s are subjecting their audience towards, leaving so many of the movie’s most spontaneous moments void of anything that even comes close to an ambitious attempt, and considering the extensive ensemble involves two sturdily tested comedic actors in Kim Coates and Alison Hannigan, it’s more than disappointing how minimally they are used to connect the personalities of their characters to the audience, in turn leading to a bigger problem with characterization that sees the movie having far too many characters with very little development between them. You could certainly make this very same case for Matt or Gia, who I could write everything that I learn about either on a cocktail napkin, but it’s much worse for the supporting duo of couples who not only represent Matt’s enthusiastic factor to pick himself up after a devastating event, but also those who receive such little focused time for their respective efforts, in turn wasting away a variety of performances, but beyond that a greater sense of understanding with the couples who materialistically represent the flawed perspective of everything that Matt seeks out for himself. The script’s problems don’t necessarily stop there however, as not only does a cliche-riddled outline lead to inescapable predictability of so many of these scenes feeling directly plucked from better movies before it, but also the effortlessly expected third act distancing that sees the dishonesty of Matt and Gia’s manufactured relationship stall from uncovered truths meant to unceremoniously rock its very foundation, without anything that even comes close to a legitimately confrontational aspect to their blossoming love for one another. The truthful aspect itself is laughably unimportant even for cinematic standards, a fact made worse by the third act’s attempt to stack on a convoluted layer to the conflict further explaining Gia’s uncomfortable feelings towards it, and considering this bombshell twist is enacted and resolved within the very same scene that it sprouted from, it makes the Kinnane’s feel desperate for some semblance of dramatic entanglement to an otherwise PG-rated finished product, testing the sturdy foundation of the couple’s success with a trivial speedbump so clumsily enacted that it fails to justify why Matt would even keep it from Gia in the first place. Finally, while the movie flies at a voracious brand of pacing within its 92-minute runtime, I nevertheless found myself bored by the shallow plotting and thinly utilized characterization that made the structure of the film feel like it was going through the motions of its inevitable outcomes, serving itself as one of those films that you could pay halfway attention to, and feel like you’ve missed nothing, as a result of how little it actually accomplishes.

OVERALL
Solo Mio is warmly inviting and romantically nourishing in the confines of Kevin James and Nicole Grimaudo’s touchingly affectionate chemistry, however its flat-on-arrival humor and thinly written dimensionality to its characters and storytelling has its romance stranded on the altar of entertaining cinema, merely leaving a slightly above average engagement continuously compromised by the creative decisions of originality that it regretfully doesn’t take. Though aided by intoxicating cinematography zeroing in on the Italian culture and corresponding landscapes, the newest from Angel Studios doesn’t quite come together as the perfectly flawless date movie, leaving an undemanding outpouring on the power of connection that in turn doesn’t find a way to the heart of its audience

My Grade: 5.6 or C-