By Becca Johnson - January 17, 2025
From 10 Things I Hate About You to Hustlers, Silver Linings Playbook to Orphan: First Kill, Julia Stiles has had an exceptional acting career. She now sits in the directors chair for the first time with feature debut Wish You Were Here, a romance drama starring Orphan co-star Isabelle Fuhrman and Mena Massoud (Aladdin). Charlotte (Fuhrman) finds herself in a rut, searching for a spark that seems just out of reach. After she has a whirlwind night of romance and imagining a future with a man named Adam (Massoud), he ghosts her. When Charlotte finally discovers that Adam is terminally ill, she helps him spend his last days living life to the fullest. Despite lacking an original premise and depth within the storyline, Wish You Were Here boasts excellent lead performances and strong filmmaking from Stiles.
Isabelle Fuhrman has mostly been associated with the horror genre since fan-favourite Orphan released back in 2009. She’s consistently starred in movies of that ilk since, so it’s nice to see her do something a little different within Wish You Were Here. Fuhrman puts on all the charm needed to carry a romance drama, creating a likable lead in Charlotte. We first meet her when she’s putting a lot of pressure on herself to find Mr. Right, working as a waitress in a cringe-worthy Mexican restaurant and living with her best-friend, but the further the run-time progresses, the deeper her journey becomes and the more she learns about herself and love. Fuhrman depicts the whole arc with ease, delivering in both romantic scenes and emotional scenes alike.
Starring opposite as her terminally ill love interest is Mena Massoud, who equally has a lot of charisma and a natural likability to him. The performance expected from him is also of the emotional kind as his character battles cancer. Tugging on the heartstrings and displaying an admirable amount of hope and desire to make the best out of a bad situation, Adam is an inspiring character, which Massoud portrays beautifully. Good supporting performances are delivered from Jimmie Fails (The Last Black Man in San Francisco) as another brief love interest of Charlotte’s, and a criminally underutilised Jennifer Grey (Dirty Dancing) and Kelsey Grammar (Frasier) as Charlotte’s parents.
Most viewers will be buying their cinema ticket to see what Julia Stiles is capable of delivering with her filmmaking - fans are likely to be pretty impressed. Wish You Were Here is a good all rounder, boasting not only delightful performances but a good pace, fun soundtrack and interesting visual elements. Most importantly, the direction on display is very strong. The performances she pulls from her talented cast are completely natural, and its plain to see the effect that the novel, written by Renee Carlino, had on her. It has heart, emotion and despite being derivative of other movies based on terminal illness, it has lots of smaller admirable moments that help set it apart. Due to the strengths in most areas, it avoids feeling like a debut and fits comfortably in amongst other romance dramas of this kind. Stiles shows much confidence with her direction, and it’ll be interesting to see where she goes next.
The element that prevents this from hitting a complete home run is the writing. Stiles’ direction is quite a bit stronger than her script, that often glosses over important moments and fails to develop themes and characters that deserve more. The fact that the story is quite familiar puts Stiles at a disadvantage, as audiences wish to see something different from a romance story featuring a love interest with a terminal illness. Whilst it stands on its own two feet within the minor details and the help of stellar performances, the bigger picture doesn’t do enough to blow you away. It’s pretty run of the mill.
Kelsey Grammar and Jennifer Grey starring as Charlotte’s parents is inspired casting but they’re completely wasted, the script failing to develop either of their characters past face value. The same can be said for Jimmie Fails and perhaps even Gabby Kono, who gets more screen time than the rest of the supporting cast but has an arc reduced to her love life and nothing more. Of course, the story intentionally centres on Charlotte and Adam, as it should, but misses out integral parts of their lives, too. The most noticeable jarring moment is the flippant comment made by Adam, stating that his family cast be with him to support him through the illness due to work. This idea is never looked at again by the script, so feels lazy and like an easy way out of utilizing a larger cast. Wish You Were Here features a few instances of this - it’s sorely underwritten, with occasionally basic dialogue.
Wish You Were Here is the first romance drama of the year, and it starts us out on a sweet spot. Fuhrman and Massoud are fantastic, Stiles’ direction boasts confidence, and as familiar as this storyline may be, its easy-breezy nature and natural likability helps us settle into its rhythm. The soundtrack matches the tone of the movie effortlessly, and the script does well to balance humor and heart. However, the under-development of our characters is unforgivable, as well as weak dialogue and obvious shortcuts in the writing. Another draft or two of this script, including a deeper look into themes and plot points mentioned, would increase Wish You Were Here’s rating from ‘good’ to ‘great’.
Out now in US cinemas
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