See You on Venus movie storyline. See You on Venus tells the story of a young girl who is about to die. Mia’s last wish before she dies is to be reunited with her biological mother, whom she never knew. Mia decides to go to Europe in the hope of finding her mother.
During the journey, the young girl meets Kyle, who was involved in a fatal traffic accident and therefore feels remorse. The two quickly formed a beautiful bond and decided to look for Mia’s mother together. During this journey where they experience unforgettable adventures, an unexpected love arises between Mia and Kyle.
See You on Venus is an American drama romance film directed by Joaquín Llamas and starring Virginia Gardner, Rob Estes, Alex Aiono, Isabel Serrano, Eowyn Nyby Krieger, Claudia Ferranti, Cristina Artacho, Veronica del Cerro, Carolina Aller, Marjorie E. Glantz and Lolo Diego. The screenplay wes written by Victoria Vinuesa. The film was released on July 21, 2023 in the United States by Vertical Entertainment.
Film Review for See You on Venus
“See You on Venus” is a swooning, sad-eyed romance in which our young-couple-to-be are buried under tragedy upon tragedy and every dire romantic complication under the sun. Well, save for one. At least they don’t discover they’re long lost siblings.
The weight of those burdens and the coincidences that throw them together almost smother the film. But as they’re thrown together on an impromptu road trip by VW Microbus camper through Spain, at least we have the grand Spanish sights to draw us in.
Almost. As 18 year-old Mia and the suicidal Kyle she rescued and bullied into taking the trip with her make their way back and forth across Iberia, the film only bothers to identify a couple of locations — Madrid and Segovia. That’s got to be Valencia on the beach. Maybe the Costa Brava?
I recognize Toledo, and that mountainous city could be…Cuenca? What a silly blunder, basically forgetting to ID the stunning sights that these two California teens visit on a quest that is, frankly, also blundered.
Kyle (composer/actor Alex Aiono of TV’s “Pretty Little Liars”) has been morose, a near recluse for months. There was an accident, and he can’t remember details and can barely summon up the will to go on, much less respond to those soccer scholarship offers or visit his pal Josh (Alex Astort-Fabra), who has been bedridden since the car crash that traumatized them both.
Another teen was killed in the car that Kyle was driving, and “Who can live with that?” He’s about to take a leap into a canyon not far from Santa Rosa Bay High School, California (they shot the whole film in Spain, so the geography’s off) when foster-teen Mia (Virginia Gardner) spies him through her camera lens and intervenes.
She fakes a fainting spell, forcing Kyle to be chivalrous. She bargains and begs him not to go through with it, which is “none of your business.”
“If you jump, I’M gonna jump…Don’t you get it? You ARE my business?” He barely has time to sulk home when Mia’s bluffed her way into his house, faked out his parents and summoned him for an “all expenses paid” trip to Spain with her. Yeah, there’s a fake relationship, the works.
Kyle’s folks are convinced. Kyle, on the other hand, has to be blackmailed. But while we know some of Mia’s story, she has secrets. And more secrets. And secrets beyond the fact that she was besties with the boy who died, who was her planned companion on this epic trip that’s actually a quest to find her birth mother.
If failing to identify the glories of Spain that these two pass through — that looks like Pamplona’s bullfighting ring — isn’t sin enough, this Spanish co-production skims over Mia’s many encounters with the women who might be her mom.
And throwing in one more tragic subtext to all this might play to the teen audience this movie is meant for, but anybody over 21 will have been rolling her or his eyes long before that one last Big Secret is revealed.
Virginia Gardner has a girl next door charm that tamps down the “Manic Pixie Dreamgirl” nature of her character. A cute blonde who blackmails you into flying to Spain with her, at her expense? Who could fall for that?
Aiono manages the role’s brooding well enough. But the artifice of their relationship, the inept and perfunctory ways the “secrets” are discovered and the would-be birth-moms passed-over as if the production was afraid of having to pay somone for saying a line and the inept way of shortchanging the travel nature of the trip — not naming cities, treating Segovia as if its famous Roman aquaduct is the only sight — rob “See You on Venus” of its can’t-miss qualities. It’s a road trip romance that doesn’t so much charmingly play out as dully pass by through a VW camper’s windows.
See You on Venus (2023)
Directed by: Joaquín Llamas
Starring: Virginia Gardner, Rob Estes, Alex Aiono, Isabel Serrano, Eowyn Nyby Krieger, Claudia Ferranti, Cristina Artacho, Veronica del Cerro, Carolina Aller, Marjorie E. Glantz, Lolo Diego
Screenplay by: Victoria Vinuesa
Cinematography by: Óscar Montesinos
Film Editing by: Juan Carlos Arroyo, Joshua Kirchmer
Costume Design by: Alberto Luna
Art Direction by: Silvia Ballesteros, Ysrael Sánchez
Music by: George Kallis
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Vertical Entertainment
Release Date: July 21, 2023
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