RABBIA MOLAI
managing editor
rabbia.molai@my.tccd.edu

There may not be enough words in English, Polish or Italian to describe how to feel about “The Next 365 Days”.

The third installment of the 365 Days or 365 Dni movies came out on Netflix Aug. 19 and to say it was mind-numbing is an understatement. The entirety of the series isn’t great, however after the crapshoot that was the second movie, there wasn’t much hope for the third one.

The acting has been mediocre since the first installment of the series, yet somehow they have gotten worse as the movies have progressed. What’s strange is you almost can’t tell if they’re over-acting or underacting. Perhaps it would be easier to tell the difference if there were more than two seconds of dialogue before the beginning of another three-minute music sequence. The entire movie felt like a two-hour music video.

“The Next 365 Days” truly solidified the opinion that Laura is the most self-centered and sex-obsessed character that has ever existed in the history of trashy cinema. Not to mention the fact that she spent the entire movie walking around like a newborn calf on drugs.

More importantly though, in the third film, we get more of an insight into her home life and parents which seem pretty normal. It begs the question –  what the hell went wrong in this girl’s life to make her have such weird Stockholm syndrome issues?

Sure, we can justify falling in love with one mafioso who kidnapped you, but two? No ma’am. Bringing a secondary love interest in to stir things up makes sense, but it’s hard to believe that even after finding out Nacho was only using her as a part of his father’s plan Laura would still fall for him.

Other than our main female lead’s character regression, Massimo surprisingly actually managed to make some progress in this movie. Even though he still had his aggressive moments Massimos’s character arch over the span of the three films was actually quite nice to see.  He showed restraint and dealt with all of Laura’s tantrums with love instead of anger. This particularly showed through at the very end when he revealed he already knew about Nacho and Laura’s relationship and understood why she needed time and space.

It would have been better if Michele Morrone had worked on his acting skills a little more instead of using the series as a way to shove his music down our throats.

Frankly, the only saving grace of not only this movie but the entire 365 franchise has been the one and only queen, Olga. The best friend of our selfishly preoccupied lead is hands down the best character in the whole series. She was constantly there for Laura even when she kept making stupid decisions and not returning the favor. Most of all, Olga was honest with Laura and didn’t tiptoe around the truth. She was also hilarious which helped. The only reason this review is two stars instead of one is because the queen deserves a star for herself.

Overall, “The Next 365 Days” was a major waste of time that further proved some stories only need to be told through Wattpad, not the big screen.