Fiona MacKenzie’s Tell Me I Love You is a romantic comedy about three best friends who make music together. Ben (Sam Clark, “A Deadly Dance”), Ally (Paulina Cerrilla, “$elfie Shootout”) and Melanie (Kaniehtiio Horn, “Death Wish”) also live in the same house, though this is temporary. What they require to complete their demo is time in a proper recording studio, and this would involve money they do not have. Solution? Melanie is reminded about the trust fund she has, a fund she gets to cash in on when she gets married, and if she does, it would need to be with a man (Melanie is bisexual, so this is a bit of a tricky situation).
For some reason, Ally’s old boyfriend Oscar (Geovanni Gopradi, “Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2”) decides he wants to propose to her during a family get-together, and Ally, struck with the inability to say no, instead tells him that she’s already engaged to Ben. Ben’s bright idea is then to propose a marriage between himself and both Ally and Melanie. I don’t know how is this is even legal, especially since you would need to file appropriate paperwork to get the trust fund. Isn’t there someone managing the trust fund to make sure the marriage is legitimate? Maybe I need to just go with it, and not question the logic of the film, but it’s hard not to when it is so distant from the reality of life.
Moreover, Ally is willing to let her parents pay for her wedding and invite close friends and family for this sham of a ceremony. I suppose I can understand the Melanie and Ben arrangement since the trio need the money to finish their demo, but the Ben/Ally pairing is wholly unnecessary. Ally just needs to be a grown up and tell her parents she doesn’t want to get married.
The film trots out the real reason why Ben and Ally push through with it — they are still in love with each other. Someone should tell that to my mate Ben because he looked really uncomfortable at certain points. The actors who play these roles also don’t have chemistry with each other, so it’s kind of hard to believe there is still some passion there. Moreover, Ben cheats on Ally twice, and they still end up together. That old boyfriend Oscar seemed like a much better option.
Tell Me I Love You is, unsurprisingly, labelled a romantic comedy, but everything about it is so very unromantic and unfunny. The script (also penned by Fiona MacKenzie) is lacking since these characters are severely underdeveloped and the comedic moments grasp at the easiest of adult jokes involving the likes of Viagra guacamole and titillating yoga poses. I was honestly just waiting for it all to end. The fact that the poster is so clearly and amateurishly Photoshopped together should have told me everything I needed to know about the level of wit to the film.
The only redeeming quality the film has is Paulina Cerrilla’s singing. She has a nice voice, and I do think she has massive potential as a singer. As an actress, though, not so much. Clark is also predominantly a singer, which is why the musical spaces of Tell Me I Love You have more credence than the acting spaces. You are, therefore, better served watching videos on YouTube of the two singing, because this film is not worth the time spent watching them, or anyone else really, try to act.
