The Map That Leads To You (2025) review - A lesson in how not to do doomed romance

Amazon are next in line to release a tedious and infuriating doomed romance film where, once again, a girl, this time named Heather (Madelyn Cline), falls in love with a man named Jack (K. J Apa) while on holiday with her friends. You guessed it, he is hiding a life-threatening illness which throws the romance into the balance.

The Map That Leads To You, directed by the fairly unremarkable Lasse Halström, like the other films in this ever growing subgenre fails to capture the heart which makes us obsess over tragic romance stories. You only have to look back a few months to My Oxford Year to see this butchered as well. Albeit not as badly as this film does.

It does do one thing that the others don’t. It creates one of the most obnoxious love interests put to screen, only rivaled by the Hero Fiennes Tiffin’s Hardin Scott from the After series. Seriously impressive work. At least these other films will make our love interest remotely engaging and pleasant to watch.

He is the epitome of the performative male who thinks he is a cut above everyone else because he doesn’t surround himself with what other people his age do. This is best seen in a scene where he is filled with rage after watching a woman take a photo of herself with a selfie stick, even though Heather and her friends have been doing that for the whole trip.

Which does cause a blip in their alleged romance. Not for long though, as they arrive at the airport so Heather can end her travels and head back to her new job in New York, Jack asks her to spend an extra few weeks with him traveling more across Europe.

She says yes, which is framed as some big step in the pairs relationship as one her character’s only traits is that she likes things to be planned and organised, but it’s not like she is sacrificing anything. She is just staying on holiday a bit longer, its hardly a massive romantic act.

Heather and Jack inevitably end up falling in love with each other in the two weeks. I can’t tell you why. Maybe his constant monologues about the most mundane things do it for her. Or maybe it is his mysterious nature. Not the sexy kind though, it’s the type of mystery your parents warn you about as a kid and tell you to stray away from.

The rest that follows is as predictable as it gets. He starts to get calls about urgently needing to go to the hospital after something was discovered during a scan for a broken arm. He agrees to go back to New York for Heather once the holiday has ended, but ends up leaving her at the airport.

She eventually finds out about his cancer a few months later, which is briefly mentioned after the selfie stick incident but down played, and decides to be with him anyway. Despite the fact he has been nothing but unreliable and frankly just a bad person for the majority of the 96 minute run time.

I think it’s time for the hidden illness, boyfriend dying trope to die with them. It is no longer interesting, and the wishy-washy we should live in the moment messaging is progressively getting worse and worse each time someone attempts it. I dread to think how bad it will be next time.