Peter Foldy

(On Cable TV, May 2021) Time loop movies have the potential to be transcendental, funny, horrifying or uplifting. But they can also be used as engines for lower-common denominator movies like Love on Repeat. Produced within the segment of the film industry that cranks out bland romantic comedies for TV channels, this is low-end low-effort low-budget moviemaking at its basest. The actors really aren’t the best, the direction is utilitarian, the staging is bland and once you get over the time-loop thing, its biggest claim to originality is to take place in nondescript Gunthrie, Oklahoma. But, of course, you can’t avoid the time-loop thing as it describes how a young woman feeling aimless in her life, job and relationship gets to relive the same day over and over again. We know what she’s going to get out of it when she finds true love and contentment, but the film will rerun through the same day for a while until she gets it. On most aspects, director Peter Foldy’s Love on Repeat is a clearly substandard affair — there’s nothing profound or witty here, nothing all that memorable nor surprising either. (You can watch the trailer and get most of it, including the ending we’ve been expecting.)  Still, when you grade it on a curve and compare it to other movies made for Lifetime, Love on Repeat does look a lot better. It’s more interesting on a purely entertainment level than most of the even-blander, even-more-nondescript romcoms in that space, and the lead actors (Jen Lilley and Andrew Lawrence) are good enough to win us over by the end. Still, don’t go in there expecting much — on an absolute scale, it barely struggles to reach mediocrity.