written by: Jamie Adams (additional material by The Cast)
produced by: Tom George and Rebecca Long
directed by: Jamie Adams
rated: not rated (strong language and sexual situations equivalent to an R rating)
runtime: 81 min.
U.S. release date: June 5, 2025 (VOD)

“This is, like, eight years of therapy undone.”

One of the more interesting phenomena of the last ten years has been watching the internet claim that some decade-old movie with a small but devoted following is actually the most beloved movie of all time and needs a ten-years-later sequel. The sequel gets made, and it does fine, like the first one did, because it turns out the huge following the fan base thought was there simply wasn’t there. This is one of the major themes explored in the new comedy “Let’s Love,” a charming film that can’t help but be just a little too inside-baseball for casual fans, as it criticizes multiple things about the film industry.

That’s not to say that the film doesn’t work without extensive insider knowledge of the way films are made, because there is a ton of fun to be had without any prerequisites. The film centers around the 10th anniversary celebration of a fictional film titled “Don’t Delete the Kisses”, a romantic drama with a small but devoted following shot in the Welsh countryside. The four principal characters reuniting for a 10th anniversary celebration in the town where the film was shot are its writer Nigel (Martin Freeman), its director Andrea (Malin Åkerman), and its stars Jess (Jess Weixler) and Jackson (Josh Hutcherson).

Andrea and a 20-year-old Jackson ended up hooking up during the film’s production and have since been married, with intentional shades of Sam and Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s similar relationship coating their subplot (which we’ll get back to). As for the other two folks in this quadrangle, co-star Jess has long carried the torch for Jackson despite his relationship situation, while Nigel more subtly longs for a deeper connection with Andrea.

When the anniversary reunion celebration at the hotel is canceled due to equal parts total lack of interest and a mix-up on the part of the studio underling Ronnie Riskin (a scene-stealing Craig Roberts), the four demand an audience with studio head Jerry (Dermot Mulroney), which they will be granted in four days. Local fans Ashley (Richard Elis) and Ashleigh (Chloé Jouannet) offer up their house to the quartet to stay for those four days, and thus begins a journey toward a pitch for a ten-years-later sequel.

Director Jamie Adams has the script credited to both himself and the cast, as there is extensive improvisation by the actors. This likely led to the various insider humor I alluded to earlier, but many directors (Mike Leigh and Christopher Guest among them) do this exact thing; they just don’t credit the cast the way Adams does here. It’s nice to see their contributions recognized and credited, as the cast carries the film through even its roughest patches.

I have a ton of goodwill toward Martin Freeman. I’ve been a fan since discovering the original “Office,” coupled with his role as Arthur Dent in the better-than-it-has-any-right-to-be 2005 adaptation of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” and his appearances in at least a dozen different movies I enjoy. His series “Breeders” captured a very specific feeling only parents can understand—similar to the kind of love/hate relationship seen in last year’s “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You,” so all of this is to say that he seems to gravitate toward things I enjoy watching.

Over the years, Freeman has done a great job of twisting his early nice-guy image as Tim on “The Office,” Arthur Dent, or the hapless, virginal man-child he played in my most despised yuletide classic, “Love Actually.” Here, he plays another one of those characters that started out similarly optimistic, but disappointment and the diminishment of his contributions to his most famous work have kept him from ever getting his hopes up again. It is a comedy, but he’s doing great work here playing a guy who knows that time has turned him into a prick, and that’s just not who he really is, deep down.

Josh Hutcherson has turned into a fascinating character actor, far from the cherubic little boy he was in films like “Zathura” and “Bridge to Terabithia.” He has since played a credible tech-bro villain in a Jason Statham movie, fronted another successful franchise with “Five Nights at Freddy’s,” and starred in the insanely weird Hulu series “Future Man.” Now, I don’t think he’s explicitly playing Aaron Taylor-Johnson in this movie. It’s hard to think that any actor would throw one of their contemporaries to the wolves in quite this way, so I think Josh really leaned into the doltishness of Jackson and put the actual ATJ out of his mind.

My first time seeing Jess Weixler in a film was the biting Vagina Dentata horror flick “Teeth,” which is a tremendously enjoyable film thanks to her committed performance. She lands many of the best lines in this film, such as the quote I kicked off the review with, and really leans in to the comedy of her character jettisoning every piece of good advice she’d been given about moving on from Jackson.

She does such a great job convincing the audience that Jackson is actually a desirable person, which is crucial to the dynamics among all the characters. Also interesting to note is that Weixler’s first feature film role was in 2007’s “Little Manhattan” starring, you guessed it, Josh Hutcherson!

Malin Åkerman is such an interesting actress; she came on strong with big swings in films like the ill-advised remake of “Heartbreak Kid” and the even more ill-advised live-action adaptation of “Watchmen.” She is probably best known these days for her campy sapphic antics over on Netflix’s “The Hunting Wives,” but she allows herself a vulnerability here that I haven’t really seen from her before now.

She’s bringing a depth of feeling to the various transgressions against her character in the film and shows a side of herself she doesn’t get to show very often on film. It sounds like such a backhanded compliment to say that she impressed me, but it’s undeniable she’s now a good long way away from her sunburnt sex scene with Ben Stiller.

I enjoyed the heck out of “Let’s Love” because it seems to have its knives sharpened to skewer very specific things that could use a little skewering. The film’s plot and its various character dramas are definitely engaging enough to carry along any viewers unfamiliar with the inner workings of the film industry, though that added knowledge makes some of the jokes land a little harder. The only thing I don’t love is that title. It makes a unique film feel completely anonymous.

The lesson of “Let’s Love” is to love the things (or people) you love because you love them, not because everyone else does. Stop worrying about what anyone else thinks and engage with your passions on a real human level. The internet may pay the bills, but it’s not reality, and it’s time to “touch grass”, as the kids like to say. Fandoms are a strange thing; they bring people together and drive them apart, and this film may not necessarily be saying all of this stuff, but it’s certainly in the mixture that gave rise to its creation.

RATING: ***½