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The Romans branded their capital Urbs Aeterna — the Eternal City — on the conviction that Rome would endure forever. Lovers harbor a similar optimism, believing their own destinies equally permanent and inextricably intertwined.
It is precisely this assumption of permanence that Matt Taylor (played by the eminently charming Kevin James of King of Queens) sees shattered at the altar in Solo Mio, the latest film from Angel Studios, when his fiancée leaves him heartbroken and blindsided mid-wedding in the Italian capital.
The ancient city serves as the rich and vibrant backdrop against which Taylor, mourning the untimely demise of his relationship, reluctantly proceeds with his honeymoon plans, unable to get a refund on such short notice. The absurdity of solo tandem bike rides and lonesome candlelit dinners soon piques the interest of fellow honeymooners on his tour: Julian (Kim Coates), now in his third marriage to the same woman (Alyson Hannigan, whose comedy talents are criminally underused in the film), and Neil (Jonathan Roumie), a newlywed married to a controlling therapist.
Their eccentricities, presented as comic relief to help Taylor overcome his depressive rut, serve as a study of relationships, highlighting that there is no such thing as a perfect marriage. As Taylor catalogues his and his ex-fiancée’s many incompatibilities, he realizes his own mistake: “We were perfect — we never fought. So why aren’t we still together?” The film’s answer is that peace and pacifism are not necessarily proof of love or compatibility.
Taylor recalls Paul Giamatti’s Miles in Sideways (2004): Both men travel through wine-country melancholy after romantic collapse. Yet where Miles retreats into bitterness and misanthropy, Taylor remains open and optimistic; he is visibly wounded but not cynical to the broader pursuit of engagement and having children. Among the triumphs of the screenplay, co-written with James and the Kinnane Brothers, is its ability to convey the belief that love and marriage are perennially meaningful and worth pursuing, even after enduring failure.
That belief is manifested in a serendipitous encounter with Gia (Nicole Grimaudo), an extroverted café owner still recovering from her own betrayal by a habitual philanderer. They share an unmistakable chemistry. “It actually says zu-chero on my app, you see,” Taylor awkwardly tries to correct the Italian local’s pronunciation of zucchero (sugar), in an early scene together in her café. Wielding the warm and genial personality stereotypical of Italians, she draws him out of his comfort zone and teaches him to take risks.
Beneath the banter, the ethos of Solo Mio posits that people are naturally drawn to relationships. None is without its complications or turbulence (and some are simply not meant to be, as in the case of Taylor’s first proposal), but finding love and starting a family requires risk and opening yourself up for failure. And that is something worth fighting for.
Modern courtship, filtered through apps and optimization, seeks an imagined ideal partner and avoids emotional danger. The film argues the opposite: Love is inherently irrational and shouldn’t be curated like a playlist — a sentiment I can agree with, as someone who met his significant other on such an app. Even the film’s recurring musical motif, the great Puccini aria “Nessun Dorma” from “Turandot,” is about a prince who risks near-certain death to pursue a princess he loves.
The film’s highlight comes when Gia invites Taylor to her family villa in Tuscany. Nestled among picturesque vineyards and verdant rolling hills, it is practically a tourism ad (and an effective one at that). Surrounded by Gia’s exuberant family, Taylor encounters Andrea Bocelli casually seated at the piano, in one of the better cameos I have seen to date. It is a testament to Kevin James’s lowbrow and lovable sensibilities that upon meeting the venerable tenor, his first instinct is to exclaim, “Wow, you must know Ed Sheeran!”
Solo Mio is a refreshingly funny and heartwarming romantic comedy centered on genuinely decent people who know what they want and pursue marriage and family as life’s ultimate commitments, rather than the romantic ambiguity and sardonic indifference that so often suffuse the genre. It is a reminder that love is not made permanent because it never falters, but because we choose it again after it does.
Harry Khachatrian (@Harry1T6) is a film critic for the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a software engineer, holds a master’s degree from the University of Toronto, and writes about wine at BetweenBottles.com.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
