There were only two reasons I was remotely interested in this movie (no, not Sydney Sweeney's most famous features, although that was a bonus of sorts).

The first was that I'm always interested when Hollywood makes a foray into my homeland, curious to see if they'll depict Australians as they really are instead of the stereotypes American audiences want to believe about us.

And the second was genuine curiosity about what made it such a big hit in cinemas. It looked to have all the trappings of a classic 90s-era rom com, wearing the cliches gleefully on its sleeve like the meet-cute, the final dash to get the girl, the embarrassing naked scene, the central misunderstanding, the comedy sidekick best friend (s) and everything else.

It's the kind of thing studios don't really make anymore – in fact I read an article just days before writing this review about how the streaming services are the natural home for this sort of thing because of their cost and disposability – and no matter how much industry heat stars Powell and Sweeney have on them as I write these words or how much chemistry they had when it came out, I wanted to know what made it a big screen movie that earned ten times it $25 budget.

All I can suppose is that it gave rom com fans a throwback to all the tropes they loved from the heyday of the era and they lapped it up. It didn't reinvent the wheel, but it did got every accepted mark fans love about the genre dead on target.

We meet Bea (Sweeney), a professional girl who's a bit sworn off love, rushing for the coffee shop bathroom, and when the surly barista won't let her use it without ordering and the line is out the door, handsome bystander Ben (Glenn Powell) steps in, pretending to be her husband doing her order so she can get the key.

Once inside she manages to splash water all over her pants, prompting a scene of her trying to be nonchalant as they talk through the door, one leg propped up on the sink with the air dryer pointed at her crutch.

The pair can't deny their attraction, one thing leads to another and they spend a (curiously chaste) night together. Without really knowing why, Bea sneaks out the next morning, excitedly calling a friend about her conquest and realising she's being stupid – she likes the guy so she should go back.

But Ben has woken up and figured this girl he really liked has rebuffed him, so when Bea returns to his door, she overhears him rubbishing her to his friend Pete (GaTa – yes, that's his name) who's come to visit. Bea hears all she needs to hear – that she was just a conquest he doesn't really care about, and the premise of the move is set.

So when Pete's sister and Bea's sister are taking their relationship to the next level six months later and having their destination wedding in Australia, Ben and Bea cross paths again and the old hatred reappears – still based on the complete misunderstanding, with neither wanting to admit how much they want each other.

Cue countless scenes of them having to spend time together in and around the aspirational locale of Palm Beach in the far north suburbs of Sydney, both circumstantially and with their friends and family members trying to set them up, until the pair decide in desperation to pretend to be together so everyone gets off their backs.

Love and romantic hijinks will shower the walls like blood in a slasher movie among everyone present, all of it sprinkled across attractive and aesthetic scenery like idyllic beaches, airy, Vogue-living inspired dinner parties, classy restaurants, a boat cruise on Sydney Harbour, etc, etc, us as the audience either wanting the lovers on screen or wanting to be them.

Neither director Will Gluck or his script co-writer Ilana Wolpert forget everything fans of this genre love and slot them in at every opportunity. If you've ever gone misty as a woman in a bridal gown runs desperately through an airport or tapped your feet during the end credits song that was a hit about 10 years ago but we all secretly still love (and which featured in an embarrassing or slightly lame context in the story), you're exactly who it's aiming for.

Another thing I was most curious about was seeing whether local actors of Bryan Brown or Rachel Griffiths' calibre would emerge unscathed or slum it for slapstick or cheap laughs for American paycheques like countless others (Bill Hunter in Kangaroo Jack, Paul Hogan's entire career after Crocodile Dundee). And… eeh… kind of?

Also interesting was how liberal the movie is with language while being so chaste with the initial sex scene. When Bea extricates herself from Ben after their night together she's fully dressed, so I thought it was just taking a very PG approach – especially when their second dalliance is considerably steamier. But no, according to the plot description I read, they don't sleep together when she goes back to Ben's place, they just lay around together all night. Go figure.

But after all that, Wolpert and Gluck are smarter than I gave them credit for, because apparently the story is loosely based on (and contains quotes from) Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing .

So maybe it's got nothing to do with 90s rom coms, streamers or cliches, it's about a British playwright centuries ago who understood and commented on the properties of the human condition that have been with us since we climbed down out of the trees and into the savannah, the themes of which endure effortlessly to this day.