See You on Venus

Mia is a young actress with small parts on a series and a serious heart condition. She wants to go to Spain to find her birth mother. Kyle has run from his foster family and taken a car. The two set out from Los Angeles for the village in Spain where her mother is said to live. The subject is not love but both of them counting themselves abandoned. Mia wants to find her mother; Kyle knows nobody ever looked for him. Each is making the journey to get an answer and each knows the answer may not be good. The form is a road movie: landscape, songs, motel rooms and arguments. The Spanish sections were genuinely shot there and the rural footage is the best of it. The source is Victoria Vinuesa's novel. The adaptation keeps the illness while bringing the romance forward, and the result is a familiar structure aimed at a young audience. Virginia Gardner plays Mia and Alex Aiono plays Kyle. Joaquín Llamas directs; it was made as a Spanish and American co-production. Who it is for: viewers who like teen romance and road movies. Who it is not for: anyone after originality; the narrative follows the known steps of the ill-young-lovers template.