'Solo Mio' review: Kevin James is likable, but rom-com is uninspired

In "Solo Mio,” Kevin James plays an American art teacher, Matt Taylor, whose destination wedding in Rome ends with a runaway bride and a Dear John letter. After trudging back to his five-star hotel, Matt takes the advice of a sympathetic clerk: Since his honeymoon here is paid for, why not enjoy it alone?

So begins a promising project from James, the amiable comedic actor from Stony Brook. The first theatrical feature from The Kinnane Brothers, a sibling filmmaking collective that collaborated with James on dozens of online shorts during the pandemic, "Solo Mio” at least has the basic ingredients of a crowd-pleasing rom-com. When Matt meets a beautiful cafe owner, Gia (a perky Nicole Grimaudo), we see the first glimmers of later-life love (James is 60, Grimaudo 45). What’s even clearer, however, is that everyone in this wobbly production — both in front of and behind the camera — seems completely lost.

We can start with what’s supposed to be a meet-cute in which Gia teaches Matt the Italian word for sugar, zucchero. He insists she’s wrong — a move so boneheaded that we wonder whether his skedaddled bride had the right idea. Later, Gia asks to see a sample of Matt’s original artwork and announces: "It’s not very good.” These two are about as adorable as a dropped gelato, but the screenplay (by James and two Kinnanes, Patrick and John) requires them to fall in love, so they do. Matt hides his botched wedding from Gia for reasons that make little if any sense — but again, there's a plot that needs complicating.

Directed by two more Kinnanes, Charles and Daniel, "Solo Mio” doesn’t unfold so much as stumble and occasionally face-plant. Matt’s two new friends, hard-partying Jules (Kim Coates) and sensitive therapist Neil (Jonathan Roumie), come over to his room, suddenly launch into personal attacks and then begin weeping, like characters in a dying improv sketch. Everyone’s ideas are weird: Matt, who paints landscapes, briefly forgets the word (he almost calls them "horizons”), which somehow inspires Gia to go sit for a caricaturist (the actual drawing is by yet another Kinnane). "Solo Mio" tries to up the magic with two celebrity cameos, but these only make us wonder who knew whose agent.

On the plus side — well, that’s a short list. "Solo Mio” does have a clever plot twist that suggests the filmmakers have some inkling of how movies work. The soundtrack features several vintage Italian pop tunes (Bruno Lauzi’s "Ritornerai” is a real find) though also a little too much "Nessun Dorma.” Lastly, it’s hard to completely dislike any movie set in a city as beautiful as Rome. A few nicely photographed horizons, however, aren’t enough to recommend "Solo Mio.”

By Rafer Guzmán

rafer.guzman@newsday.com