Review :A Year in London (2026)

Dir Flaminia Graziadei: 90 mins

Hello, cinema lovers. A Year in London arrives with an interesting premise. What if The Devil Wears Prada was a love story? Not a cautionary workplace tale. Sadly, the resulting movie feels shallow and tame, lacking any real heart. The devil in this case wears Primark.

Directed and written by Flaminia Graziadei, this Anglo-Italian romantic drama follows Olivia (Nina Pons), a young designer from Southern Italy, as she moves to London to study fashion. She quickly gravitates toward her teacher Nina (Melanie Liburd), an established, Gay designer. The two women quickly develop a bond; however, Nina's position as an up-and-coming student and a handsome fiancée back in Italy all conspire to keep our star-crossed lovers apart.

Pons plays Olivia with an unpleasant, bratty air that will put off most viewers almost immediately. This decision was obviously meant to show a character arc throughout the movie but feels lost in the script. Pons is a very attractive actor, but her portrayal of Nina reminds me of Anna Hathaway's shorter, grumpier, moody Italian cousin that nobody invites over for Christmas.

Liburd gives it a better go at playing Nina; she's definitely a striking woman who wouldn't feel out of place playing Storm in an X-Men movie adaptation, but rather unfortunately she can't act her way out of a paper bag. There's a line early in the movie where Nina talks about her fashion style as an armour. That armour is mostly confined to all-black ensembles, all-white outfits and, dare I say, a combination of the two. As a fashion icon, she reads as bland as a toilet brush.

The plot lumbers along in an unconvincing will-they-won't-they manner. Dream sequences showing the two women kissing each other are sprinkled throughout the movie with all the erotic charge of a bit of old cabbage. Honestly, I didn't see a single tongue once. Two people falling in love is an amazing thing; here it's portrayed as an odd, stilted, strange affair that leaves me wondering what these women see in each other.

Recently, I reviewed the watermelon women from 1996, and what struck me was the authenticity of that project. This, however, feels like the opposite: a thinly constructed, poorly plotted, crude attempt at a lesbian rom com that feels bereft of romance. The comedy element is mostly left to several side characters. Nina's flamboyant assistant is a game attempt to add a bit of sass to the proceedings but feels like a faded xerox copy from an episode of Ugly Betty.

Nina's flatmates in the most unconvincing flatshare set I've seen in years feel redundant too. Nina is rude and spikey to them initially, but after a mugging subplot they are all suddenly friends. It makes no sense, and it doesn't work. This kind of plotting makes Emily in Paris feel like Mad Men in comparison. The depth of a puddle comes to mind.

On the plus side, the movie is very well filmed, particularly the drone shots of London and the Italian countryside. The very handsome Masseo Bassi plays Ninas fiancee Paolo, hes very limited in range, but he's very cute and is a welcome sight on the screen. The Italian village Nina comes from is filmed beautifully, especially the scene when Nina and Olivia run into each other at either end of a rainbow-painted tunnel. The two women rush through the large opening, embrace and declare their undying love. It's not exactly nuanced, but the tunnel looked pretty.

The director clearly cares about representation, and the themes of gender and sexuality are given space to be explored here. That counts for something. But representation without emotional weight is a bird without wings. Some very pretty actors can't distract from a shallow, inept project that feels like a swing and a big miss. Maybe some pleasure can be gotten watching this car crash, but for most cinema fans it's best avoided.

A Year in London will be released in UK and Irish cinemas on July 17, 2026