“The Map That Leads to You” is a romantic movie. Allegedly. Sort of. It gets to the lovey-dovey stuff eventually, but half of it plays like a “Hostel” sequel. A group of conventionally pretty college graduates travel across Europe, meeting strange men who stalk them, split them up, and refuse to be photographed. At one point the handsome lead says he tracked the heroine down just to mansplain Ernest Hemingway’s fourth wife to her, and she promises never to forget again.
I haven’t seen this many red flags since the factory that makes red flags exploded. And these guys might have been the arsonists. Oscar-nominated director Lasse Hallström (nominated, notably, for better films) seems oblivious to the weirdness on display in “The Map That Leads to You.” He only sees a sweet romance between an American, who travels to Europe before accepting a big banking job, and a dashing young man with worldly opinions, who sweeps her off her feet and changes her life while hiding a tragic secret. To those paying attention, yes, that’s the same story as “My Oxford Year,” which came out only a few weeks ago. To quote Dr. Doofenshmirtz: “It’s weird that it happened twice.”
There’s something to be said about a good romantic travelogue. “The Map That Leads to You” doesn’t say it. It’s bright and crisp to a fault, careening past the realm of escapist fantasy and crashing in unbelievable territory. Watching these Americans in Europe without a care in the world, whose biggest problems are whether they want to throw away their financially lucrative careers in exchange for [checks notes] romantic bliss in picture perfect locales isn’t dramatically riveting. It’s so divorced from reality that it’s practically grounds for divorce.
There’s not much plot to speak of but let’s speak about it anyway. “The Map That Leads to You” stars Madelyn Cline (the scene-stealer from “I Know What You Did Last Summer”) as Heather, who just graduated college and is totally getting a sweet banking job. But first, a European tour with her best pals Connie (Sofia Wylie) and Amy (Madison Thompson)! Heather wants to see the sights, Connie wants to eat the food — which we never see her doing — and Amy wants to boink studly men, one of whom gets her hopped up on hallucinogens and steals everything she owns.
Fortunately (?), Heather just met Jack, played by KJ Apa (“Riverdale”). It’s a good thing he stalked her and wanted to mansplain Hemingway’s life story, I guess, because he helps them track down Amy’s thief and he steals all that guy’s money instead. Because screw that guy, obviously. They take his giant wad of cash on a spending spree and you’d think that would be important later, like that criminal might be mad about having all his money stolen and want to do something about it, but apparently he’s cool with being robbed. Our affluent heroes must have wanted it more!
Then they all split up and Heather spends the last leg of her European tour with Jack, and Europe is very pretty and they’re very pretty and they fall in love. It would be lovely to fall in love along with them, captivated by their charms and/or inspired by their personalities. But Jack and Heather are generic creations: a starry-eyed tragic young man and a young woman whose only personality flaw is that she’s not very impulsive, which barely even qualifies. He’s an ideal, she’s a cypher. Together they’re a blank slate mounted in a shiny frame.
There’s so little to “The Map That Leads to You” that it makes “My Oxford Year” look profound by comparison, which is pretty impressive since “My Oxford Year” is “My Oxford Year.” Hallström’s film is an Amazon Original and “Oxford” is a Netflix Original, so maybe these two rivals were trying to one-up each other, “Armageddon” vs. “Deep Impact”-style. But in this case it’s more like “Alien vs. Predator,” since whoever wins, we lose.
Look, romance lovers are a bit like slasher fans, in that we don’t need every movie to be brilliant, we just want them to hit the beats we love, and hit them hard. “The Map That Leads to You” barely finds its rhythm, and never really connects. There’s nothing amazin’ about it. It’s merely Amazon.