When you think of your best friend, I bet that you think about how there is nothing that you wouldn’t do for them. Me, I know that I would move heaven and earth to be there for my best friends. Sometimes I think that all I do is make mistakes, but at the same time, I know that she knows that it’s never intentional.
Why am I talking about best friends? Well, it’s because essentially that’s the premise of A Costa Rican Wedding. Now, I know that it’s about a wedding too, but like all Hallmark movies, it’s more than that.
There’s love, friendship, miscommunications, weddings, parents, and the lengths that you’d go to for a friend.
Rhiannon Fish and Christopher Russell star in the movie as Emily and Ryan. The two are endearing, but I have to say when isn’t Fish endearing. The actress is just good in everything she’s been in. She brings characters to life and gets you to be so invested in them.
Russell is both captivating and vulnerable. Yes, some will say that he’s just great to look at and he is. But looks aside, he brings Ryan to life so well that you are both angry at the character, but love him. He gets you invested in Ryan and makes you want to know what is going to happen.
The basics – Emily (Fish) is heading to Costa Rica for her best friends wedding. She’s got the wedding rings – which is a bad idea, because Emily is the type of person that looses everything. Ryan (Russell) is her best friends fiance’s BFF, and the two of them seem to hate each other.
Ryan is always trying to one up Emily. TBH at the beginning of the film, he’s somewhat annoying. I want to scream at him and be like, dude, we get it, you need to be arrogant. It’s quite annoying. Yet, I wonder why it is that I find this arrogance something that I am invested in.
When a monkey steals Emily’s bag, she must go after it. In the bag are her friends rings. I have to say, I did love the story of the rings – how they’ve been passed down generations and every new owners adds a new diamond. It was a beautiful story.
Emily – dear sweet Emily. Chasing after a monkey in Costa Rica to get your bag back? Far fetched. I get that this is a movie and we will get some far fetched stuff. However, this part made me laugh. It made me laugh, because it seemed so out of left field. But it’s a testament to who Emily is a person – she’s not going to let her best friend down and she’s not going to give people more room for talking about her.
And as a friend – you’re suddenly drawn even more, because you feel like hey, you’re being spoken too directly. You think of all the times that you’ve messed up as a friend and all the times that you’ve been forgiven. Would you go through the jungle in Costa Rica to hunt down monkeys? Probably not. I would disclose that I lost the rings.
But Emily, she goes into that jungle with Ryan and is on the search. It’s funny, because you don’t know when it happens – it just does – you see that he’s got feelings for her. A lot of feelings. It isn’t feelings of hate. It’s feelings that run deep. Feelings that make him feel alive. It’s feelings of frustration and feelings of love and feelings of wanting to impress her. It’s feelings where he thinks that she’s everything.
But Emily doesn’t see it. She sees him as trying to be in control, trying to one up her all the time… trying to shame her. And she’s not ashamed of who she is. Which she shouldn’t be. She’s just used to everyone putting her down and saying that she’s a mess. It’s hard to watch because you know that all she wants to do is good. She wants to love and be loved.
Where people may not mean the worst by the things that they say to her, it’s a reminder that words can hurt. Words can be misconstrued. Words stick with you. For Emily finding that bag is something that she needs to do because she can’t be the person who ruins everything for her best friend.
I watch Hallmark movies all the time and I always think that I am supposed to focus on the romance. I sometimes think that people miss how multi-faceted they are – that they embrace real human emotion. They did in to the different perspectives that people have. They embrace the fact that communication is key and that a lot can changed if we’re just open to really listening. It’s not always about romance – it’s about loving ones self and realizing that holding things in can really hinder you.
The adventure that Ryan and Emily go on, draws them closer together. They realize that they thought each one hated the other, because of miscommunication. Ryan wanted the best for her. Ryan was distant with her because he liked her and thought she deserved better than her ex. He was distant because he cared. He was distant because he didn’t know how to handle it.
I truly think that the beauty of this movie was that things did go wrong. Things went wrong for so many people in this movie, but all of them were able to make it through and be strong. All of them were able to prove who they were and who they could be. They were all able to find themselves.
At least pieces of themselves that were missing. There were happy endings – because of course there were. But it was poetic and it was sweet. But the best part – besides someone finding the bag that the monkeys took – was that Emily found redemption within herself.
You see people make mistakes in life and well, that is just what it is. The most important thing is what you learn and how you try to make things right.
A Costa Rican Wedding was a lesson in love and friendship. I learned something. I felt something. I appreciated it.
