'With Love' Review: A Worthy Latino Rom-Com
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- Published: Friday, 17 December 2021 17:04
- Written by Lupe R Haas
From One Day at a Time showrunner Gloria Calderón Kellett comes the Prime Video series, With Love, a different sort of love story that spans several holidays. The trailer didn't sell the new series very well, but With Love takes its time showing the true nature of love and the ups and downs of coupling with interesting characters that will get you hooked.
Written and created by Gloria Calderón Kellett, the 5-episode rom-com follows the Diaz family as they navigate break-ups, new beginnings and love that needs rekindling in a year's time. The series events take place during five major holidays like Christmas, New Year's, Valentine's Day, Fourth of July and Dia de los Muertos. The series stars Emeraude Toubia as “Lily Diaz,” Mark Indelicato as “Jorge Diaz Jr.,” Rome Flynn as “Santiago Zayas,” Desmond Chiam as “Nick Zhao,” Vincent Rodriguez as “Henry,” Isis King as “Sol Perez,” Todd Grinnell as “Dr. Miles Murphy,” Constance Marie as “Beatriz Diaz,” and Benito Martinez as “Jorge Diaz Sr.”
Romantic comedies never seem to evolve with unrealistic timelines of people falling for each other. With Love, Calderón Kellett explores love in a more organic and true way by having the character's needs evolve with time. The Diaz siblings, Lily and Jorge Jr. help each other along with their love lives while their parents (Marie and Martinez) suffer from relationship fatigue and boredom.
With Love follows different types of relationships between gay, transgender, heterosexual and singledom, and in the end, love is love no matter the type. While they may face different challenges, the mechanics are the same. This includes the showrunner who plays a family relative and the older single woman happy with her unmarried, kid-free life. That's the beauty of the series portraying all kinds of love.
While it's great to see a Latino family at the center of the comedy series, Calderón Kellett lays it on thick with the Latino-ness. Characters consistently remind us they're Latinos, it seems at every turn. While Latinos like myself are very proud of our culture and show it in our everyday lives, the show goes overboard which I fear may turn off some viewers.
With Love is an endearing series that you can binge quickly with its short season of 5 episodes. All episodes are available now for streaming.