Not to beat that dead horse, but now that I am done with the American Film Institute’s (AFI) list of the 100 greatest American films of all time, it is time to do something different.  I am working on ideas, and for now I think they will involve anything that I can find on the various streaming channels that is short.  This is how I came across A Tourist’s Guide to Love.  From here, it all depends on whatever other factor pops into my brain.  For this one, I have a cousin who recently traveled to Vietnam with her son.  Her relating their travels inspired my desire to visit, though it takes little to get me interested in such adventures.  In any case, I expected a pretty standard romantic comedy.  It was that in many respects, but in others I got more than I anticipated.  Perhaps the rest of this review will do the same for you.

Fittingly for a movie called A Tourist’s Guide to Love, Amanda Riley (Rachael Leigh Cook) is an executive for a tour company called Tourista.  Her boss and the chief executive officer (CEO) Mona (Missy Pyle) informs Amanda that they are looking to expand their operations into Southeast Asia, specifically Vietnam.  On the docket is purchasing a local venture in that country called Saigon Silver Star in order to get Tourista going in that area.  This is not the only news Mona has for Amanda.  She also has a message that Amanda’s boyfriend, John (Ben Feldman), wants her home early.  Mona expects that this means he is going to propose, and arranges a manicure for Amanda so that the ring will look extra good on her finger.  Not long after walking in the door of their apartment, John sits her down and . . . says that he is moving away to pursue a job opportunity.  He suggests that they take a hiatus, but that nothing will actually change between them.  For her, it appears that after five years of being together, their relationship is going nowhere so he kicks him out of their home.  The next day at work, Mona proposes that Amanda go to Vietnam as a sort of secret shopper to get the Saigon Silver Star treatment and see if it is worth their money.  Arriving in Ho Chi Minh City, the first person she meets is Sinh Thach (Scott Ly).  He is the representative and tour guide for said company.  He also speaks perfect English, the result of being born in Vietnam but having spent a large portion of his life in the United States.  It makes him ideal for his job.  He also has a different approach to taking people around the country, which Amanda is part of a small group of seven including herself.  While she has an exhaustive list of must-see sites, thick tour books, and an extensive itinerary, Sinh takes each day as they come and sees where they lead him.  There is some structure to what they do, but he also does not fight against delays and other hiccups that can happen when you deal with a country as chaotic and crowded as Vietnam is in some places.  While she takes notes on what goes on, she begins to find his laid-back style refreshing.  It also does not hurt that she thinks he is attractive, and it is apparent that the feeling is mutual.  At the same time, this complicates things because it is also clear that he loves what he does.  He works for his uncle, but Sinh expects his relative to soon retire and hand over the operation to him and his cousin (and tour bus driver) Anh (Quinn Trúc Trán).  As such, while Amanda and Sinh grow closer, it makes it harder for her to tell him that he may soon be unemployed and see his hopes and dreams crumble.  Nonetheless, the courtship continues until they take an unscheduled detour to Sinh’s family’s village.  There they meet Sinh’s grandmother, or Ba Noi (Lê Thiên).  She welcomes the group, but assumes that with Amanda, Sinh has finally brought home a girlfriend.  In this way, Ba Noi spends extra time trying to see to it that Sinh does not mess anything up with Amanda.  The occasion is made all the more special by the fact that they are at the village for Tét, the Vietnamese New Year, and the biggest holiday in the country.  As the festivities are winding down, and feeling extra pressure from Mona demanding updates on whether or not Tourista should buy Saigon Silver Star, Amanda tries to tell Sinh the truth.  Instead, they end up kissing.  This is not altogether unwelcome for her, but she has also made revealing her real reason for being there that much harder.  It gets worse when they get to Hanoi because it is there that a new person joins the group: John.  He had been trying to contact her a few times thus far, which she ignored, but noticed the Saigon Silver Star tote bag in a selfie she took.  From there, it was not hard to figure out her location.  She is surprised, and not entirely in a good way, and neither is Sinh.  She also must give Mona an answer, to which she says yes, Tourista should buy Saigon Silver Star.  The news of the buyout is delivered while they are in Hanoi, and John takes this moment to let it slip that Amanda had been working for Tourista this whole time.  Sinh leaves feeling betrayed.  It will probably not come as a shock that Amanda later tells John that she does not want to go back to him.  In a phone call with Mona, Amanda is able to salvage the situation for Sinh by getting her to agree to let him continue to run Saigon Silver Star as a subsidiary of Tourista with the autonomy to continue doing his own thing.  She is able to deliver this to him before he leaves Hanoi and we close with them kissing.

The first thing I said to myself as A Tourist’s Guide to Love ended was “cute.”  That is what the movie is, cute.  Indeed, I daresay I enjoyed it and will probably watch it again.  Because of its quality, it provides a lot of directions I can go in with my Catholic analysis.  The good ones tend to do that, while the bad ones leave me wondering how soon humanity will be coming to an end.  I am being dramatic, of course.  Much of this pertains to ways in which the culture of Vietnam, informed as it is by Buddhism, can fit within a Catholic framework.  To be sure, the two faiths are not compatible, but there are some similar principles.  This comes out when you see Ba Noi, with Amanda and Sinh along with, at their family shrine honoring their dead ancestors.  Catholicism has a roughly similar practice, though we do not use incense. We pray for those who go before us because we want them to get to Heaven, even if they are already united with God. There is grace in doing so, which helps us, in turn, progress towards Paradise.  A broader, more personal take away was the concept of being in the moment as preached by Sinh.  He sums it up by saying that a tourist escapes while a traveler experiences.  We are all travelers in this life, and Christianity has long described us in these terms.  Trying to get away from the reality that is God does not lead to a happy life.  People tend to get lost, which is another way these ideas are conceptualized in the film.  It also makes for a great way of thinking about the process of discernment.  Amanda tells John at the end that though she does not think of herself as lost, she was not where she was supposed to be.  This is what discerning a vocation is all about: where does God want you to be.  When I use the word discernment, I tend to think that most people hear the need to either be a priest or a nun, and to answer that question immediately.  It is not an either/or proposition in reality, and it takes giving it time to figure it out.  These ideas are at the heart of this film, and as you can see, they work well with Catholicism.

A Tourist’s Guide to Love was a pleasant surprise.  Had it not been for my conversation with my cousin, I am not sure I would have watched it.  It also is helping to nudge me in a direction that I have been coming to for some time, getting back to the notion of discernment.  Sometimes, it takes getting out of your comfort zone to find that answer.  Me, a single guy watching a film like this, is a small part of such a process.  Despite a few questionable themes, I would recommend this to any audience.