Purple Hearts Movie Review: A high-pitched love-story doesn’t hit all the right notes

STORY: A struggling singer-songwriter and a Marine get into a marriage of convenience for a year to address their hopeless financial situation. But can they pull it off without getting caught? REVIEW: Cassandra Salazar (Sofia Carson) works part-time in a bar to support her fledgling singing career. It’s a bar frequented by Marines, and Cassandra has a very firm stand on never dating one owing to some of them letting out their misogynistic side coupled with her anti-military stance. Yet one of her childhood friends, Frankie (Chosen Jacobs) is now a freshly minted Marine, soon to be deployed in Iraq. And when he visits her bar one evening with his new set of Marine friends, she ends up in a skirmish with Luke (Nicholas Galitzine), one of Frankie’s besties. But that aside, Cassandra has bigger problems on hand as she realizes she is unable to keep up with her medical insurance which pay for her Type 1 diabetes insulin, a condition she has been diagnosed with six months back. In a fit of desperation, she asks Frankie to marry her before his deployment, so she can avail his spousal medical insurance benefit. Taken aback by her suggestion, Frankie declines. Luke overhears the conversation and warns them of the dire consequences of being court-martialed by the army, if caught having a fake marriage. But eventually, it’s Luke, bogged down by his troubled past and a huge debt, who takes up on her offer of a marriage of convenience for a year while he is deployed. This marriage means assured medical insurance for Cassandra and higher pay for Luke, which he plans to use to pay off his debt. And while Cassandra’s music career soars thereafter, Luke is injured in Iraq and is sent back to base for surgery and recovery. And now the two have to live with each other, and carry on their farce of a marriage in order to not get caught. Needless to add, 'Purple Hearts' follows the predictable arc of Luke and Cassandra falling for each other, with some road-bumps along the way. While Sofia Carson adds in some zesty moments with her original songs and is well-styled for her part, some of her dramatized moments are a hit and miss. Nicholas Galitzine looks his part to the T and pulls off a dependable performance. But with a wafer-thin storyline and some cheesy dialogues to boot, there is only so far the film can go. Some moments strike as superficial and some others as too contrived. Overall, despite packing in considerable drama and high-strung emotions, somehow 'Purple Hearts' doesn’t add up to a wholesome romance.