"Phantom Love" really surprised me. I didn't think it would be as good as it ended up being. I'm gonna talk about various plot elements, so if you really.....REALLY want to see this movie, don't look down!
Michelle von Flotow stars as a romance novelist looking for inspiration for her next book. She takes a few days off and heads to Florence. The lady of the house leaves a book on her bed one night and she begins reading.....that's when the fun begins!
The rest of the movie is primarily in flashback form. Griffin Drew stars as a woman living during the turn of the century, struggling with the newly-christened women's movement of the era and the traditional values of her family. The book Michelle's character reads is her journal.
She comes back home from America after the death of a close relative. After she re-acquaints herself with her aunt and her three gorgeous cousins, she finds out she's been arranged to be married! How horrible! Although it's traditional for women in her country (it's never mentioned exactly what country, but I suppose it's a European country) to be in arranged marriages, she learned in America that a woman has control over her own destiny. She goes back and forth, learning about a man she doesn't even know and looking for true love in other places.
Yeah, I know....I made it sound like a "Lifetime Movie of the Week", but don't get me wrong. There's sex, sex, and even more sex in this flick. Michelle von Flotow only gets naked once, at the very beginning, but the rest of the girls (including Griffin) more than make up for that.
The fake-sounding accents remind me of "Hidden Beauties: The Awakening" (see my review of that flick for details) and the story wasn't all that bad.
Overall, it gets a well-deserved A.
Sex: A Women: A- Story: A Overall: A
