Warning: the following article contains light spoilers for the Netflix film Resort to Love. To avoid any and all plot points, please come back after you've seen the film.
Resort to Love is a new romantic comedy from Netflix that follows Erica (Christina Milian), an aspiring pop star who’s feeling down after a breakup and then a career milestone doesn’t go as planned. She reluctantly takes a gig as a wedding singer at a luxurious Mauritius island resort, but then learns she’ll have to sing at her ex-fiancé’s wedding. This leads to a warm and funny exploration of the bonds of love and family, including an almost-kiss that could have changed the trajectory of the entire story.
Early in the film, it’s clear that Erica (Christina Milian) is not over her ex, Jason (Jay Pharoah). It seems that he left her with little to no explanation, but it is later revealed that he felt neglected by her putting her career first. When the two reunite at the resort and Erica finds out Jason is engaged to Beverly (Christiani Pitts), we’re left wondering if he’ll go through with the marriage or rekindle things with Erica. The exes come very close to kissing, which is comically interrupted by a lizard, so when I sat down with Milian and Pitts for an interview with CinemaBlend I had to ask their thoughts on if the interruption hadn't occurred. Here’s what Milian said:
Oh my gosh. There's always in all my romcoms, you know, animals. And lizards, they always mess up that romantic moment. If the lizard wasn't there, it might've been a different story, but I'm happy that it was. There’s all these crazy coincidences in one movie, but sometimes you need that awkward thing to kind of wake you up and snap you out of this terrible dream or what you think is this great reality, but probably not the best choice. So thank God for the lizard.
Christina Milian references Falling Inn Love, another Netflix romantic comedy she stars in that features some romantic moments ruined by animals. So she agrees that Erica and Jason were not the best choices for each other, but it seems like she might agree with me as well that without the lizard interruption, they may not have realized that. Or perhaps they would have but on a longer timeline?
I absolutely love the way things play out in Resort to Love. We know fairly early on who belongs with whom, but it takes the characters a bit of time to get there. It’s so much closer to real life to be blinded by an idealized version of a past relationship, especially when a couple has such a deep bond. Jay Pharoah had some thoughts on this, too, and here’s what he told CinemaBlend:
The lizard was really the hero in the story, because if that kiss would have happened there might've been more messiness in the situation and it didn't happen. So we'll never know, but I'm pretty sure that there would've been some untoward things going on then, you know, I'm sure. So I'm glad the lizard was there to stop things.
It sounds like both Christina Milian and Jay Pharoah are happy with where their characters ended up and grateful to the lizard for not making things even more complicated. But I still have to wonder, would things have eventually ended the same way without the lizard interrupting the kiss? I’d love to know what you think in the poll below. Resort to Love is now streaming globally on Netflix.
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