Kevin James is best known as the star of the long-running tv comedy series “King of Queens” where he is a modern-day Ralph Kramden working as a delivery driver for a UPS type company. In that role he was a very funny everyman with a sassy wife and with Jerry Stiller as his deranged basement dwelling father-in-law. Suffice it to say I’ve always found Kevin James a talented comedian.
So, Camera Girl came to me awhile ago telling me that Kevin James was in a movie called Solo Mio where he was a groom left at the altar by his runaway bride. I must confess that this didn’t sound particularly hilarious but as a date movie for the two of us as fans of the star it seemed plausible. But we somehow never got to the theater and I soon forgot all about it.
Fast forward to today and Camera Girl was at the local library and by a coincidence they had just gotten a DVD of Solo Mio, so home it came and we made some good coffee and cut into a pie and watched it. Well, what do you know? We enjoyed it.
(Spoiler Alert – Skip down to last paragraph to avoid spoilers and read recommendation)
The plot is goofy. James is an American 4th grade art teacher named Matt Taylor. In the opening scene we see him propose to a fellow teacher named Heather in the classroom and next we find Matt at the altar of a church in Rome where he will marry Heather and celebrate a deluxe honeymoon in Italy. But she leaves him at the altar leaving only her engagement ring and a Dear John letter.
The rest of the film is Matt trying to contact Heather by phone to beg her to reconsider. But because he couldn’t cancel the honeymoon he is travelling around Rome and Tuscany with a group of honeymoon couples visiting romantic Italian locales as a tourist. And it is with this group that he meets Julian and Neil, two new husbands whose brides are very much present but who are neglected while their husbands rally round Matt trying to force him to accept the loss of Heather and move forward with his life.
Their distinctly dysfunctional advice and help manage to make Matt even more miserable but with the help of some locals (including a sympathetic Italian woman named Gia who owns a small restaurant) Matt begins to make sense of his capsized life. Eventually Matt finds a new love (of course) and all is well.
Other than James none of the main actors are well-known (at least to me) but the opera singer Andrea Bocelli has a small part as a fictional version of himself. But this is not a star-driven film. It is a small romantic comedy that manages to bring a smile to your face and even a few small laughs. It isn’t too sappy so as to embarrass a man in the audience but it doesn’t hurt to have your wife or girlfriend there to justify your presence as a man at such a non-conventional film. But I will openly admit that I definitely enjoyed the movie. Recommended for couples and fans of Kevin James.