The Map That Leads To You is directed by Lasse Hallström director of Casanova (2005), Dear John (2010), Safe Haven (2013), A Dog’s Purpose (2017), The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (2018) and many others. 

It’s sort of unfortunate that The Map That Leads To You released the exact same month as My Oxford Year a film where they both follow pretty similarly from one another. I did not give My Oxford Year a full review simply because there was just not a whole lot to say, luckily The Map That Leads To You has a little bit more meat on its bones and is actually executed slightly better. That does not make it a good movie, but it at the very least there’s something a bit more here. 

For the most part I truly think this was just an acting showcase for Madelyn Cline because she does a splendid job here and has great chemistry with KJ Apa, unlike My Oxford Year you actually buy that these two in this film really care for one another. It’s the bare minimum but little moments go along with helping the movie move along. KJ Apa is also not bad here as well, I don’t think he’s quite as good as Cline is but he does get a few moments to show he can make the material into something somewhat interesting. Cline and Apa both take material that would otherwise be incredibly familiar and manage to bring the viewer along for the ride. Sure that ride might not be exactly great but their performances are enough to keep some interest. 

As I said before the film’s story is almost exactly like My Oxford Year, it’s slightly better written and has acting, but a lot of the same cliches are there and unfortunately that’s what keeps this movie down. If you have seen any straight to streaming romantic drama you probably already have good guess to how the characters are going to act. The scenery is undeniably beautiful combined with the filming that is actually not bad for a straight to streaming film, however beautiful scenery can’t help turn a bland script into something great. 

The emotional connection is there but barely, it takes a while to fully get invested simply because of how dull the script really is. It’s mainly thanks to Cline and Apa that this is even possible, had the writing been a lot stronger and the direction been a bit more striking there could have been interesting results here. 

What we are left with is a below average romantic drama that has solid acting and scenery but that’s really about it. There isn’t anything downright offensively bad here, it’s just a whole lot of nothing that really fails to bring anything new to the table. 

The Map That Leads To You is available on Amazon Prime Video.

5/10 C