🏖️ 1. Premise That Promised Soul Searching… Just Gave Us Sand
Unrelated centers on Anna (Kathryn Worth), a middle-aged woman tagging along on a luxury vacation to Tuscany with her best friend, Lucy. We’re promised a cultural and emotional journey—a chance to reflect, reconnect, maybe even escape midlife doldrums. Instead, the film slowly drains any sense of evolution, shrinking each scene into pockets of awkward glances and half-drank Aperol Spritz. It’s not a retreat; it’s a slow-motion walk through melted ice cream.
From the moment Anna lands in Florence, Hogg seems more interested in long silences than interesting ones. The promise of a self-reveal gets traded for discontent filed under “ambient noise.”
👩🦳 2. Anna – A Woman Lost in Wines and Words Left Unscratched
Worth’s Anna is subdued to the point of being a breathing decoration. We see her sip coffee, trail an art tour, sit beside a vineyard, but we never enter her head. She’s defined by absence, not interior life. We sense she’s unhappy—maybe lonely—but there’s never any buildup to anger, tears, or breakthrough. She just is unhappy.
The film never asks: Who is Anna? Why now? How does she want to grow? Instead, she exists to observe: sunsets, old friends, wine labels—and we’re meant to find that moving. Instead, it feels like watching someone take a slow stroll for its own sake, not because it leads somewhere.
🍇 3. Lucy and the Side Characters – Shadows Without Substance
Lucy (Mary Roscoe) is the springboard for group tours, dinners, and local gossip. Her husband and friends chatter, but none bring depth—only chatter. The hotel manager, the guide, the Italian locals—they float past, offering pretentious cultural ephemera: a gallery visit here, a vineyard tour there.
But these moments feel empty, disconnected: postcards without substance. We anticipate connections—shared jokes, personal revelations—but get polite scenes of passing interest. All we achieve is mounting curiosity at what could have been, which is more alienating than engaging.
🧭 4. Plot That Wanders Like a Meandering Tourist Bus
There is no real plot. Rather than story progression, we get a catalog of vacation staples: walking through piazzas, eating pasta, visiting villas, drinking wine, sky shots, chatting—or not. The “narrative” is simply a list of experiences without emotional stake. Anna bemoans the world, but not herself; conversations deflate before they begin.
The climactic moment—a silent near-confrontation with Lucy—just echoes long enough to promise tension, then peters out like fizzled prosecco. You find yourself bored, not contemplative.
🗣️ 5. Dialogue That Spins Its Wheels in Espresso Lines
Mostly inaudible sighs, whispers, clipped elegance—Unrelated enjoys silence too much. Hogg is clearly mastering minimalism, but not what’s beneath it. We hear, “It’s beautiful,” “What happened to you?” and variants, repeated until we feel like bad poets sipping negative space.
Occasional bursts—Anna’s teasing dig, or passing flirtation—are snapshots of potential. But the film never develops them, so you spend 90 minutes waiting for something to land… and it doesn’t.
🌅 6. Tone: Gently Tepid
A vacation set under soft sunlight should feel either romantic or restorative—or at least mildly stirring. Unrelated is neither. It’s languor without warmth, mood without movement.
The cinematography is elegant—slow pans, lush Tuscany—but aesthetics don’t compensate for absent emotional arcs. The tone is lukewarm: closer to lukewarm bathwater than Mediterranean heat.
📷 7. Visuals: Stylish, But Sterile
The Tuscan scenery is beautifully photographed, and Hogg clearly has a gift for composition—bright villas, rolling hills, stone corridors. The camera caresses the scenery, but never caresses Anna’s soul.
Moments of beauty feel hollow because we’re never invited to feel them. They’re meant to be poetic, but they lack emotional propulsion. We remember landscapes, not feelings.
📈 8. Themes That Hover Without Landing
The film alludes to isolation, middle-age malaise, cultural displacement, unspoken desires—but never commits. Anna’s generational gap with Lucy is noted but never examined. Their shifting friendship arcs never climax. Anna’s disquiet is recognized, never addressed.
A final scene shows Anna seated by herself on a terrace as fog rolls in—a visual echo of unresolved feelings. But without narrative tension, it reads like a fashion photo with no commentary.
🧠 9. Performances That Emanate, Not Erupt
Worth and Roscoe are both graceful and observant actors, but they’re locked into a film that gives them little to do. Their performances are minimalist—understanding the assignment—but there’s no raw moment, no rupture.
When Anna tries to show anger, sadness, or intimacy, it feels restrained—like the filmmakers politely said, Maybe don’t put too much into it. The result is more curated stillness than honest feeling.
🌀 10. Final Verdict: Elegant But Emotionally Absent
Rating: 1.5 out of 5 silent villa tables
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Concept: Great on paper—midlife reflection in paradise.
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Character: Observational but not interior.
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Plot: Vacation log, not a journey.
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Dialogue: Light and clipped—no depth.
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Execution: Visually sleek, emotionally inert.
👀 TL;DR
Unrelated looks like a refined holiday snapshot—but feels like someone carefully framing air. If you want a film to moveyou, this one stays motionless. It’s a stylish exercise in observational cinema that forgets to ask: “Where are we going?” It’s a beach with no tide, a painting without gravity. Let the next Joanna Hogg film find a pulse. This one just found a postcard.