dir. Brian Herzlinger
Runaway Romance‘s whole shtick is that it’s a romance set in Amish Country. A beleaguered reality TV star runs away from LA and finds herself in a quiet rural community free from the trappings of modern life. Except they all use cars. And electricity. And the internet. They’re all sort of half-Amish at best, it would seem. The movie itself doesn’t actually seem remotely interested in the Amish community beyond vaguely adopting some of its aesthetic, like lingering shots of horses and verdant fields. For example, our heroine quickly becomes best friends with an Amish widow who’s being pressured to enter an arranged marriage. Will the young woman acquiesce, or will she escape and follow her own path? Well, the movie never actually bothers to tell us, focusing instead on our heroine getting her own back on the reality TV co-stars that tried to manipulate her, and falling in love with a bland barely-Amish “architect” who ostensibly spends most of his time hammering nails with Habitat for Humanity. Basically, this is an Amish love story – except with the “Amish” taken out, barely any chemistry or affection to constitute “love”, and tragically little in the way of “story” either.
