*Fuck Love Too*: A rom-com that trips over its own clichés

The opening scene of Fuck Love Too is a mess of forced laughter and awkward silences—Lisa (Bo Maerten) reunites with her friends in a Dutch bar, their smiles never quite reaching their eyes. The camera lingers on each character in turn, as if waiting for something memorable to happen. It doesn’t. Directed by Appie Boudellah and Aram van de Rest, this sequel to 2019’s Fuck Love is a romantic comedy that stumbles out of the gate and never regains its footing.

The premise is familiar: after a breakup, Lisa returns to the Netherlands, only to find her friend Kiki (Nienke Plas) planning a wedding. The girls head to Ibiza for a bachelorette trip, where they navigate a series of romantic flings and emotional entanglements. The film tries to balance multiple storylines—Lisa’s rebound with Jim (Géza Weisz), Cindy’s (Victoria Koblenko) search for love, Bo’s (Yolanthe Cabau) dramatic arc—but the execution is clumsy. The Ibiza setting offers some visual appeal, with its sun-drenched beaches and lively nightlife, but the cinematography rarely does more than establish location. The camera work is functional at best, missing opportunities to use the scenery for deeper thematic or emotional resonance.

The soundtrack, while featuring some catchy tracks like Lund’s Fuck Love, often feels tacked on rather than integrated into the narrative. The music swells during emotional beats but rarely enhances them, serving more as background noise than a storytelling tool. The film’s pacing is another issue; scenes cut abruptly between characters without building momentum or cohesion, making it feel more like a collection of loosely connected vignettes than a cohesive narrative.

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The performances are where Fuck Love Too falters most conspicuously. Maerten and Weisz share a lackluster romantic tension that never convinces, their chemistry feeling more like a directive from the script than an organic connection. Weisz’s portrayal of Jim is particularly flat, his charm never quite materializing despite the character’s intended allure. Koblenko’s performance as Cindy is similarly underwhelming; her storyline meanders without purpose, and she lacks the screen presence needed to make her character compelling.

The ensemble cast is large, but few characters stand out beyond their clichéd roles—Cindy the hopeless romantic, Bo the dramatic best friend, Jim the charming stranger. Yolanthe Cabau as Bo delivers some of the film’s most over-the-top moments, but even her performance feels more caricature than character. The supporting cast fares little better; Nienke Plas as Kiki is saddled with a predictable pre-wedding panic, while Bettina Holwerda as Angela and Edwin Jonker as Jack feel like afterthoughts.

The film’s biggest misstep is its reliance on tired tropes and a predictable plot structure. Every twist feels telegraphed from miles away, and even the supposedly emotional moments—like Lisa’s realization that she still loves her ex or Kiki’s pre-wedding panic—lack sincerity. The dialogue doesn’t help; lines like “Love is messy” and “Maybe we’re not meant to be together” are delivered with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

Structurally, Fuck Love Too struggles to balance its multiple storylines. Scenes cut abruptly between characters without building momentum or cohesion, making it feel more like a collection of loosely connected vignettes than a cohesive narrative. The pacing is uneven, with some subplots dragging while others are resolved in a single scene.

Where the film does show glimmers of potential is in its attempt to explore modern relationships and the messiness of love. However, these moments are so few and far between that they’re overshadowed by the film’s broader shortcomings. Themes of friendship, heartbreak, and self-discovery are touched upon but never fully explored, leaving the narrative feeling shallow.

Fuck Love Too is a rom-com that fails to deliver on any of the genre’s basic promises: charm, wit, or emotional resonance. It’s a film that feels like it was made by committee, with every beat and trope checked off a list but none executed with any real flair or originality.

The film’s reception has been universally panned by critics, who cited its predictability, artificiality, and lack of chemistry between the actors. While it may have some appeal for fans of lighthearted rom-coms looking for a mindless distraction, Fuck Love Too offers little that hasn’t been done better elsewhere.

In the end, Fuck Love Too is a forgettable entry in the romantic comedy genre, one that fails to capitalize on its potential or deliver any real satisfaction.

Cast

Photos: The Movie Database (TMDB)

Tags: comedies, Bo Maerten, Yolanthe Cabau, F*ck Love Too, Appie Boudellah, Aram van de Rest

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