Rom-com flop Aloha is looking for a second chance at success on Netflix this September. Cameron Crowe has directed (and written) some remarkable romantic films, such as Say Anything…, Jerry Maguire, and Almost Famous, but his most recent film (released nearly a decade ago) is nothing short of a curious disaster. It’s rare that a film can feature such a ridiculously stacked cast (Emma Stone, Bradley Cooper, Rachel McAdams, Bill Murray, John Krasinski, Danny McBride, and Alec Baldwin) and tank with critics and general audiences in equal measure.
In the case of Aloha, there was even some casting controversy to boot. Specifically, Emma Stone’s character, Captain Allison Ng. Ng is of one-quarter Hawaiian and one-quarter Chinese descent and Stone is neither. While the film does go out of its way to explain why the character does note have any resemblance to her ethnic heritage, Stone has previously mentioned that the casting was perhaps not correct. According to Crowe, in a 2015 interview with The Guardian, the character was based on a real-life, red-headed Hawaiian local. Yet, Stone’s casting in Aloha, which hits Netflix on September 1, is just one of the film’s many problems.
What Happened with Aloha?
Aloha is a movie that seems to exist without much purpose. It’s more than a little pleasant to look at, given the locale, but it doesn’t feature characters that are interesting to spend time with. Additionally, the problems faced by a troubled production are evident in the film’s uneven editing, which leads to some confusing decisions, such a scene where Cooper and Stone’s characters ascend a mountain, and without a cut they’re suddenly at the top of it.
However, the film’s biggest problem for many is the overly sweet story, which pushes saccharine levels to the extreme, making it hard to stomach for some moviegoers. The lack of likability factor in the movie’s lead character, along with too many of those too-quirky and illogical moments – such as an entirely silent “conversation” between that aforementioned lead and Krasinski’s character – the film was always going to struggle. This has not stopped many messy movies becoming streaming hits, though, and Aloha could be the next to find a second life on Netflix.