REVIEW: ‘Love Stuck’ Honors The Original’s Beating Heart

Time loop scenarios are usually used to deliver important lessons. However, they are a common enough sci-fi trope that can be too predictable in execution. As a remake of The Map of Tiny Perfect Things, Love Stuck (Rak Won Loop) has a harder time avoiding that predictability in the genre, with its first half delivering familiar beats. While the story suffers from a pacing lag, Love Stuck still captures the impactful magic that made the original film stand out.

Love Stuck starts in media res. Within the first few minutes, two things become clear. Toy (Teeradon Supapunpinyo) takes nothing seriously and is trapped in a time loop. He can do anything with his time, but the outcome remains the same. Toy always returns to the start of New Year’s Eve. However, things change when he accidentally meets the mysterious Vee (Plearnpichaya Komalarajun).

Vee initially wants nothing to do with Toy. He’s immature and pushy—the complete opposite of the young woman. However, throughout their frequent run-ins, she slowly softens towards him. Toy convinces her to find the hidden Perfect Moments during their loops, reminding the audience of what we miss when we get caught up in the everyday stressors of our lives. This brings them closer, but Vee still maintains a boundary with Toy. This puts them into conflict, forcing them to separate for some time.

Leading up to the point, Toy seems like the central character of Love Stuck. But this isn’t entirely the case. The timing of the separation between Toy and Vee hits the halfway point, leaving plenty of room to explore the character. This is part of the lag issue that the middle portion of the film suffers from, but we get some insight into Toy’s character. Tension between Toy, his father, and his sister, Rin, is a problem the young man has been avoiding. But when you have all the time in the world, you can only avoid issues so much.

That’s not to say that the smaller things in life aren’t necessary. It’s a disservice in a way to point out the film’s pacing lag because that’s where these pivotal, small but impactful moments for these characters are. Things that many of us in our day-to-day life would dismiss as wastes of time. However, that’s likely putting too much thought into what is, by and large, a pacing issue. While still important in fleshing out our characters, the execution and massaging of these quick-bite scenes slow things down to an unnecessary crawl.

Avoidance and denial are two key factors Love Stuck successfully explores. It’s okay to allow yourself distractions, but life has to move on. This is one of the unfortunate parts of growing up. While Toy figures this out sooner, it becomes clear through the speed at which his revelation arrives that he’s being set up as the secondary focus. Vee is the real focus of Love Stuck, and for good reason. Her reasoning for being in the loop is tragic yet entirely relatable. What would we give for more time?

Trapping yourself in a loop to buy more time does little to fix the issues. Love Stuck perfectly captures this, despite its later attempts to explain time travel. A dive into quantum theory is more confusing than not, and Vee’s scientific resolution toward the film’s end will have people scratching their heads. The less you think about the time travel mechanics, the easier the film’s main takeaways come into focus. However, it is easy to get confused when thinking about actual science. Other films have explained the concept in a less convoluted way.

As a remake, Love Stuck is mostly faithful to The Map of Tiny Perfect Things. Some cultural differences help differentiate the two films, but key plot points are maintained throughout. Love Stuck honors the original film at its core, maintaining the magically impactful lessons and overwhelming heart its predecessor carried. Even if its time travel science is confusing to follow and its pacing is all over the place, the beating heart of the film resonates.

Love Stuck is now streaming exclusively on Prime Video.