Finding You: Novel-based YA romance is steeped in blarney

Liam Lacey

Rating: C

Reviewers aren’t usually faced with writing about the sort of romance movies churned out by Hallmark and Lifetime. While it’s getting a theatrical release, Finding You, an American-Irish co-production from Sky Movies is in that camp

It’s the story of 18-year-old, preppie blond New York girl named Finley (Rose Reid), who heads to Ireland for a semester to prepare for her big violin audition. There she meets, squabbles with, and eventually falls in love with a bad boy TV star, Beckett (Jedidiah Goodacre), when she discovers they’re staying at the same B&B.

Vanessa Redgrave, Rose Reid and Jedidiah Goodacre in Finding You

Beckett is in Ireland to work on a Game of Thrones-style fantasy series, fend off groupies and obey his domineering manager-father, Montgomery (Tom Everett Scott, who, when he was young, starred in That Thing You Do). Finley, as part of her Irish studies program, is obliged to help out at the local seniors’ home, where she reads Twilight novels to the cantankerous, ailing Cathleen (Vanessa Redgrave), who has a painful secret which must be sorted out.

Will Beckett fall for Finley, or for his manipulative co-star Taylor (Katherine McNamara)? Will Cathleen reconcile with her estranged sister? Will Finley find the emotional depth to win her violin audition?  Could this please be wrapped up in less than two hours? (It runs 119 minutes).

PROUDLY SUPPORTS ORIGINAL-CIN

While Goodacre has a certain smarmy charm, there isn’t much to hold our attention apart from the virtual tourism:  Ireland, in the movie, is portrayed as a land rich in lore and cliché, including the town’s ace fiddler and poetic drunk (Patrick Bergin),  some exuberant colleens (notably Saoirse-Monica Jackson of Derry Girls) and buckets of tea, scones and moist green landscapes.  

The real-life setting is the town of Carlingford, on the northeast coast near the border, the happy winner of the Irish Tidy Towns Competition of 1988.

I was intrigued to find that Finding You was not produced by an AI romance plot generator, but an actual book — Jenny B. Jones’ 2011 YA novel, There You’ll Find Me. As well as the Irish-set romance story, it’s about a violin-playing heiress with an eating disorder who rediscovers her Catholic faith — the “You” in the title seems to be Jesus.  For sure, the cinematic Finding You is a much tidier story.

Finding You. Directed by Brian Baugh. Written by Brian Baugh, based on the novel, There You’ll Find Me. Stars Rose Reid, Jedidiah Goodacre, Katherine McNamara, Patrick Bergin, Saoirse-Monica Jackson, Tom Everett Scott and Vanessa Redgrave. Finding You is available on DVD, Blu-Ray and video on demand on Sept. 7.