Always Woodstock is the kind of movie I rather see as a slap in the face to hard-working single girls all over the world. The sort of nonsensical rom-com that actually asks audiences to find something admirable (adorable?), if not believable, in the general notion that those who work hard and get screwed over will have nothing but serendipity later, just so long as they can appreciate it when it happens. It’s the sort of world where starting over means immediately finding everything you were missing before. It’s fantasy, and not the satisfying kind.

Hardworking career girl Catherine Brown (Allison Miller) slaves away at a record company, babysitting egotistical talent and being generally unappreciated by her superiors. At home she is inexplicably engaged to an obviously narcissistic actor who has a sex addiction. As seems to always be the case in these sorts of hackneyed scripts, her life is thrown into chaos in the course of one day when she is inexplicably fired (no, like really, there’s a law suit there for sure) and comes home to a cheating boyfriend. Her life in disarray, she decides to move back to her childhood hometown of Woodstock, where the abandoned home she inherited (oh that we could all have houses given to us) gets the magical Mary Poppins treatment and suddenly looks like a Crate and Barrel catalog. In her first night in town, Catherine wanders to the local bar, gets drunk, and is taken care of by the young, handsome, and apparently single doctor Noah (James Wolk). Determined to pursue her dreams of being a folk singer, Catherine starts working on her music — with the help of an older singer/songwriter Lee Ann (Katey Sagal, descending the ranks to play a role beneath her) — and since everyone in this town seems to have an interest in music (though strangely not of the hippy variety despite the town’s history) she seems to have support in every corner.

Where things get unreasonable is that she faces that oh-so-unbelievable dilemma of facing career success and love life success simultaneously — a feat well known to be almost impossible to handle with suave fluidity.

Ok, so my snark may need to be put in check, but its hard to watch women be given good things on-screen only to be represented as wholly unable to manage. Allison Miller is affable enough, having a sweet demeanor that takes the edge off her illogical situations. As for her musical abilities, not so believable. Especially since she’s basically handed instantaneous success for what sounds essentially like the basic crooning of any dorm-room solo act. Not to mention she’s essentially offered the option of selling out before she’s even technically “sold” anything.

First-time writer/director Rita Merson gives off the feeling that her end goal was to make a movie, not that it was to make a particularly original one. The curves may not be wholly predictable, but all of them are groan-inducing. It’s just getting harder and harder to believe that the women in today’s rom-coms wouldn’t have seen enough rom-coms themselves to not fall for all the same tricks anymore.

See your new boyfriend walking out of an office with an attractive young woman? Best to jump to conclusions. Ex-fiance comes out of the woodwork at the 11th hour and claims to be rehabilitated? Definitely worth discussing. Got an important meeting on the same day you promised someone you’d be somewhere AND you lose your phone? Silly you.

There is a place for the rom-com in this world. There’s even a place for a storyline involving a woman transitioning careers and starting over in a small town (it’s been done many times to much better success), but I think it’s obvious the world has outgrown certain clichés and Merson manages to hit on almost all of them. Watch it if you want to see Katey Sagal sing, a talent she should be used for more often. Watch it if you want to see Rumer Willis with her trademark cool girl scowl. Watch it if you have no other expectations from a rom-com other than to see a dreamy love interest, and James Wolk certainly is. But honestly if you want a generic saccharine rom-com experience, you’re better off heading over to Hallmark where they at least aren’t taking themselves at all seriously.

The Diary of Preston Plummer feels like a very personal film for writer and director Sean Ackerman; essentially about two young souls that fall in love and discover they each have their own painful family histories. This indie film stars Trevor Morgan and the daughter of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore, Rumer Willis. Although the film showed signs of ambition, it ultimately suffers from a mixed bag of acting performances and a script that tries to do too much.

On graduation day Preston Plummer (Trevor Morgan) is found drinking liquor alone in the science lab while speaking into a tape recorder. His teacher enters and asks why her best student opted not to dress up to walk with the rest of his classmates, to which he responds, that it is simply too expensive to buy a cap and gown. A few things are told in this opening scene; the first one is that Preston spends a lot of time alone. Also, that he is a smart guy but does not have much money to his name. But most importantly, it is revealed that his mother is not a part of his life anymore as he dictates his diary into a tape recorder.

Later on that evening, he attends a house party full of students (even though it seems very uncharacteristic for him to do so) who are celebrating their completion of their college degree. But just as faith would have it, he meets a girl named Kate Cather (Rumer Willis), who just has a violent argument with her boyfriend. He helps bandage her small wound and they escape from the party through a bathroom window. As he is dropping Kate off at her place, she asks out of the blue if he would drive her to her parent’s home in Florida. The request is a very particular one since they just met an hour ago. It is evident that Preston is just as taken aback by her forward request. He is hesitant to go but eventually agrees when she tells him she will pay for everything.

During the course of The Diary of Preston Plummer, there were many unintentionally awkward scenes that have leaves one scratching their head. One example of this is when Preston first arrives in Florida, he is invited to visit Kate’s grandfather John (Robert Loggia). Without bringing or even telling Kate, he pays a visit to John who goes on and on about owning more land than anyone else in the area. The conversation is awkward as it mostly involves John telling Preston random riddles, but it is eventually revealed that John does not get along with anyone in the family. It makes you wonder why anyone would agree to visit someone’s grandfather by themself, especially when they barely even know the person whose grandfather it is. Secondly, if the grandfather is so disconnected from the family, it seems awfully convenient that he knew right when Preston got into town.

The best part of the film was the cinematography from Miguel Drake-McLaughlin. He was able to capture the picturesque scenery of the Florida shoreline which made the film easy on the eyes. As a whole, the film struggled in several areas but the camera work was always on par. The most memorable scene was the opening underwater shot of furniture sinking to the bottom of a pool, setting the mood of film wonderfully.

By the far the greatest performance in the film was from Robert Loggia. Sadly, Loggia was the only one who was not rigid throughout the film. Unlike the rest of the cast, he was animated and his delivery was full of conviction. More often than not, lines felt like they were just being read aloud instead of actually being performed. This was most noticeable when the two leads shared the screen together, which unfortunately was a fair amount of the time. The performances start to come around by the very end, but by then it was too late.

It was hard to believe what is happening on the screen during The Diary of Preston Plummer because the storyline felt contrived and the acting performances lacked any conviction. In the end, the film may have tried to do too much with what it had. The subplot of Kate’s family history ends up overshadowing the main plot of the film, as it initially starts out as a road trip love story between Preston and Kate, but quickly shifts into being about solving a family mystery. Small glimpses of potential are briefly seen in the film, but they never fully emerge.