An unusually strong book-to-film adaptation, “The Map That Leads to You” takes Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Life is a journey, not a destination” adage to heart as it follows a 20-something American who upends her post-collegiate career after meeting her true love while on a last hurrah overseas. For decades, Hollywood keeps coming back to “Chocolat” director Lasse Hallström to elevate what might otherwise have been vanilla dramas. After a string of forgettable pictures, the helmer delivers a heartening, charming and empowering romance that never loses focus on its heroine’s poignant predicament.
College graduate Heather (Madelyn Cline), heartbroken Amy (Madison Thompson) and foodie Connie (Sofia Wylie) are having a blast on their European vacation, enjoying one last adventure together, staying in hostels and seeing the sights. Heather has meticulously planned the trip down to the minute, but is having trouble wrangling her ride-or-die besties to get to the train station for their final leg of travel to Spain. Soon after boarding, Heather is introduced to magnetic New Zealander Jack (KJ Apa) when he hurls himself onto the luggage rack above her seat. His intrusive attempt to rest instead gives way to a flirtatious conversation about Ernest Hemingway and cancel culture.
Heather learns Jack is on a deeply personal trek through Europe as well, though he’s not referring to travelogues or blogs for guidance the way she is. He’s using his grandfather’s leather-bound, illustrated journal, visiting all the relatives and places the World War II veteran wrote about and sketched within its perfectly penned pages. Fate, once again, reunites the prospective lovebirds at a club, and they stay up all night chatting and spontaneously scaling a tower to see the sparkly cityscape. As Heather’s pals go their separate ways once the trip concludes, Jack convinces her to stay longer. However, she doesn’t know that her new paramour is withholding a secret that’s destined to alter both their futures.
The story steals a page from “Before Sunrise” in the way Heather and Jack’s relationship is struck and forms over the course of several hours as dawn approaches, but then it charts a path mostly of its own trailblazing efforts when their relationship continues to deepen in the days that follow. Everything is centered around Heather’s experience. There’s also a noticeable waft of influence from Nicholas Sparks that provides the weepier elements of this couple’s complications.
Screenwriters Vera Herbert and Les Bohem (who also gets story credit) gently excise melodrama and predictability as much as possible in their adaptation of J.P. Monninger’s novel, while retaining the earned emotions within the conflicts. It’s a relief that the giant wad of cash Jack steals from a thief’s apartment doesn’t overcomplicate matters later on. Instead, the story stays fixed on the pair’s internal conundrum: whether or not to say goodbye to each other. Even more so, the narrative’s interest lies solely in how Jack complements Heather’s arc and how Heather internalizes this once-in-a-lifetime journey with him.
Hallström’s tender touch and assured knack for leading with character-driven narrative action give the proceedings a grounded sense of naturalism. He and his ensemble finesse the more inevitable aspects so they ring as resonant and don’t feel expected. He and editors Brad Turner and Douglas Crise give the film an electric energy, utilizing split screens, snapshots and cell-phone footage to connote excitement and effervescence within the group’s travel montages. We are party to these gals’ formative friendship through their Instagram-able adventures. Golden hour strolls and sobering heart-to-hearts are romantically tinged through cinematographer Elías M. Félix’s lens.
Apa makes for good leading-man material. There’s vulnerability behind his handsome sway and sweet charm. Cline delivers quiet nuance in spades. Cline and Apa share a great chemistry in performances that value subtlety over showiness. Cline also has a great dynamic with supporting actors Wylie and Thompson, their overlapping banter giving those friendships an organic feel. Cline’s sequences with Josh Lucas, who plays her caring Texan father, carry the heart and soul of the film, which houses a solid dad speech that reinforces healthy sentiments on courage, love and loss.
That’s not to say the film is not without faults. Busking and backpacking alone, Amy goes from one potentially dangerous situation to another — leaving a club drunk with a stranger, later acknowledging her outcome could’ve been worse than just losing her passport and jacket. Jack’s impulsive move, running with the bulls in Pamplona, is true to his spontaneous personality. Yet accidentally injuring himself while running behind the chaos is a contrived way to broach his hidden health condition. The wrinkles are all ironed out by the touching finale, despite his cowardly omission of the truth.
Coaxing tears while igniting audiences’ own wanderlust, “The Map That Leads To You” is among the standouts in our current crop of “Girl Who Is ‘Going To Be Okay’” movies (to borrow the TikTok catchphrase). It stands on the shoulders of “The Fault in Our Stars” and “Wish You Were Here.” This map should act as a guidebook for others on their cinematic journeys.
