Aloha (2015)

Cameron Crowe's Aloha arrives burdened by a casting decision that has aged into a cautionary tale. Emma Stone plays Captain Allison Ng, a character the screenplay insists is one-quarter Hawaiian and one-quarter Chinese, a heritage the actress does not share. The film attempts to preempt the objection by having Ng over-explain her ancestry at every opportunity, which is a novel strategy: acknowledge the problem and then keep going. The gesture did not land, and the director eventually issued an apology, which is more emotional resolution than most of the plot manages.

To its credit, the film does engage with Native Hawaiian sovereignty in a way few studio romances bother to attempt. The plot turns on a land deal, a blessing ceremony, and the real community leader Bumpy Kanahele playing himself, negotiating for mountains and cell service with the weary pragmatism of a man who has done this before. The villain is a billionaire (Bill Murray) privatizing a weapons satellite, and the climax hinges on the idea that the sky belongs to everyone. It is a soft anti-corporate sentiment, delivered gently, without much conviction behind the sermon.

Elsewhere the film is a conventional love triangle in which the women orbit Bradley Cooper's brooding contractor. Stone's officer is competent and earnest, and Rachel McAdams gets a modest arc, but the structure keeps them in supporting orbits. There is no LGBTQ content, no ecological concern, no engagement with body image or neurodivergence, and no interest in rewriting history. The rest is a meandering romance with a conscience it cannot quite articulate, which is roughly the grade the whole affair earns on its own terms: a wistful shrug in a Hawaiian shirt.