Back to the Goode Life (2019)

(On TV, November 2021) Urban protagonists moving back to their childhood hometown are a staple of romantic comedies, and Back to the Goode Life plays the trope to the hilt. This time, our heroine is a New York executive who finds out that her latest promotion lands her squarely in the target of a fraud investigation. (If that feels like a familiar set-up, maybe you’d seen Madea’s Witness Protection recently.)  Her accounts frozen and seeking a way to stay out of the spotlight, she heads back to the Georgian countryside to live with her parents, hook up with a past flame and save the local restaurant from going bankrupt thanks to her business skills. Like, you know, half of daytime romantic comedies on the air these days. The Hallmark formula is spreading everywhere, and the only half-sane response is to sit back, let the familiar plot wash over us and focus on the performances and the details of the execution. Writer-director Tamika Miller doesn’t bring much to it, though: the script is lazily put together (to the point of barely connecting the narrative, relying on dumb “I can explain!” moments such as the shitless restaurant office scene, and not doing much more with the formula than strictly required. Lead actress Kyla Pratt similarly delivers a disappointing performance — enough to hold the film together, but not particularly funny, engaging or sexy. (The supporting actresses are more interesting to look at, although to their credit they only usually have to walk in, do something more outrageous than the heroine, and walk away.)  The plot is loose to the point of incompetence with a six-month skip that copies one of the worst tendencies of the formula that it so slavishly (but badly) apes. To be clear, I didn’t hate Back to the Goode Life — it’s just sweet and good-natured enough to be not worth any hate. Hey, you can even smirk once in a while as you’re watching it as background noise. But this is a disappointing showing even in its subclass.