Choose Love Parent Guide

Cami (Laura Marano) feels stuck. She’s stagnating in her job as a recording engineer, making commercial jingles instead of music that matters. She loves her boyfriend Paul (Scott Michael Foster) but isn’t sure if he’s “her person”. To answer some of her questions, she consults a tarot-card-reading psychic, who informs her that she will have three suitors and will have to make big decisions before she fulfills a long-held dream.

Because Choose Love is an interactive film, the person making Cami’s decisions is you. At multiple spots throughout the movie, you are called upon to decide if Cami accepts a lunch date, goes easy or speaks the truth, leans in or pulls back. You can choose at random and see where the story goes, or you can pick your favorite guy and tilt the odds in his favor.

None of the decisions are difficult because the consequences don’t feel critical. Laura Marano doesn’t bring a lot of passion to her role and the three guys are familiar characters. Boyfriend Paul is a lawyer who schedules the battery changes in Cami’s smoke alarms. High school crush Jack (Jordi Webber) is a handsome teacher/photographer who’s just returned from humanitarian work in Guatemala. And Rex (Avan Jogia) is a British pop singer with bad hair dye and a killer accent. Cami is drawn to all three, but you get to make her choices for her, and hopefully wind up with a happily ever after ending. (I’m not sure it’s possible to avoid it – this is a rom-com after all.)

This is a difficult movie to review because everyone will see different films, depending on the choices they make. I watched the movie all the way through, tilting towards one guy, and then skipped around again, clicking on other options. Even so, I know from the trailer that there are many scenes I missed. What I can say is that all the scenes I watched were light, harmless, and had dialogue that sounded like it came from the Hallmark Channel. Negative content is limited to very mild violence (a girl punching a bully), low levels of minor swearing, and plenty of passionate kissing (but no bedroom scenes). The movie might not be thrilling but at least it’s fairly clean.

Choose Love isn’t a trailblazer in terms of plot but it will doubtless be a hit with audiences who want to ensure their version of “happily ever after”. I know that my 14-year-old self would have loved playing God with Cami’s life: I would have watched and rewatched the movie, clicking on each choice as I tried to figure out how romantic relationships worked. Less intense genre fans will appreciate the familiar formula and will likely find the interactive option to be the cherry on top of the familiar sweet dessert.