Goodrem and Joshua Sasse lack chemistry as ‘opposites attract’ lovers jetting around tropical Queensland
Love is in the Air marks Delta Goodrem’s first film role since the 2005 high school dramedy Hating Alison Ashley, in which she plays a Sandy Olsson-esque student with holier-than-thou vibes. Goodrem is more salt of the earth and more bloody Strayan as a seaplane pilot in Netflix’s very corny and saccharine romance: a galumphing heffalump of a movie that is best – and perhaps only – enjoyed by devotees of the Sydney-born performer. Most audiences will emerge from this formulaic and hammily acted production feeling like they’ve inhaled a block of cheese the size of a car battery.
Goodrem’s chirpy character Dana has Santa Claus-ish vibes, whizzing around communities off the coast of far-north Queensland to deliver parcels to people in need. I didn’t believe she was a pilot any more than I believe a plump man in a red suit squeezes through chimneys every December. But the protagonist isn’t the only implausible thing about this film: everything and everyone in it feels so very fake and contrived, as if beaming in from a bizarro synthetic world of simulated human emotions and Hallmark sentiment.
