Thanks to my being an avid romance reader, I think it takes something more to win my heart. Falling Inn Love just never fully grasped the magic of what it could have been.

Netflix’s Falling Inn Love, streaming now, is a romantic comedy in which a woman named Gabriela (Christina Milian) loses her job and leaves her boyfriend all in the same day. Down on her luck, she goes home and drowns her sorrows in wine and ice cream, and decides to enter a contest to win an inn. When she wakes the next day to learn she actually won, she hops on a plane across the world, only to learn that the inn she won looks nothing like it did on the internet. It’s a good thing there’s a very attractive contractor who can help her with the improvements. Things may get a little more complicated after that.

There’s definitely some charm in Falling Inn Love. It just never seems to cross that line from kitschy and charming to something more. It doesn’t really raise the stakes.

I think a bit of that loss is in how long it takes for Gabriela and Jake (Adam Demos) to settle into each other’s orbit. After a rather sweet meet-cute on the side of a country road, Gabriela seems to prickle at Jake’s presence anywhere in town. You see, she thinks that in order to stand on her own two feet, she needs to reject any and all offers of help. I mean, I’d be fine with Gabriela turning down his offer if she actually knew what she was doing. She spends far too long rejecting his presence, and far too little taking stock of what her skill set actually includes.

Gabriela is 100% capable of putting in the hard work, I don’t doubt that, but when you don’t know much more about renovation than the methods to use to turn a place into a green, energy-efficient wonderland, it’s easy to mistake hard work for smart work. That’s where Jake comes in. As a jack of many trades, acting as a contractor for this rehab and remodel is right up his alley, once Gabriella swallows a bit of her overzealous pride and allows him to lend his expertise.

And once they’re working side by side to lay tile, refinish woodwork, and install the green technology that Gabriella so loves, the movie starts to work. Their relationship never quite reaches deep enough for me to believe that she would permanently move her life across the world for him, but it definitely has a little bit of sweetness and whimsy.

I haven’t seen a lot of movies set in New Zealand, so experiencing the Kiwi way of life was definitely one of the sweet little film’s highlights. I loved that they didn’t really do much to temper the accents, which, as far as I am aware, seemed pretty authentic, but then again, what the hell do I know about the difference between Aussie and Kiwi accents. At times I had a little trouble understanding what was being said behind the thick, friendly lyricism, but it never hindered my enjoyment of what Falling Inn Love was offering.

One of the film’s most successful elements is the inclusion of Gilbert the goat in pretty much as many scenes as utterly possible. It’s hard not to love the guy. I mean, he’s had the run of the place for more than a few years thanks to the level of disrepair The Bellbird Valley Farm fell into, so it seems rude not to let him continue to lay claim to the terrain he calls home.

I think the most delighted I was the entire movie was when Gabriella looks up to see Gilbert eating out of his very own dish, emblazoned with his name. I will admit to feeling a bit of a twinge of love for the trouble-making quadruped in that moment, which only further illustrates how tepid my reaction was for the central storyline.

I have no problem, however, declaring my love for the townspeople in this movie. When you tell a small-town story, there has to be a large dose of small-town charm in order for it to feasibly work. Beachwood Downs has all that charm and then some. From the rival inn owner, Charlotte, to Norm, the hardware store owner, and everyone in between, you get all the archetypes you’d expect to find in a small-town romance. I just wish the central love story had as much charm as this town that I would absolutely love to spend a couple of weeks visiting on a restorative vacay.

Nonetheless, small-town charm and a wiley goat cannot hold this story up all on their own. That’s exactly why Falling Inn Love won’t be making any end of year lists for me. I wish it all the best, and can admit it wouldn’t be a terrible way to spend a mindless weekend evening if you’ve got nothing better to watch, but even its short 98-minute runtime isn’t enough to make me tune in again.

Falling Inn Love is streaming now on Netflix.