Unbelievably bad

Agreed

Shirley MacLaine wrote in her book that the production kept running out of money, so Tennant and the principal actors had to take a cut in pay, the shoot schedule had to be adjusted and likely shortened, scenes had to be rushed before loss of daylight, and takes had to be kept to a minimum to conserve film. I'm assuming the production wrapped prematurely when the money ran out, and the filmmakers pieced together whatever they had in the can. The result is this mess of a film. A compromised, seemingly incomplete story with whole scenes missing and character development sacrificed. One minute you have MacLaine's character at odds with Hesseman's character, the next minute they're kissing! When did they get together??? And what about the fabulous location, Gran Canaria? Very little of it is shown, except for a few establishing shots. They needn't have bothered traveling so far from home. What a shame. The movie had potential, but it was undone by budgetary issues.

Best movie I've seen all year. Absolutely wonderful plot and acting.

I totally agree; I was similarly stunned at how badly it was written and directed. Sometimes juvenile, other times just rushed, it was sad to see such great actors speaking these lines and, at times, following poor direction. I can't even fully blame Demi for her acting...that quick scene where she's mocking Howard Hesseman's baton as being a "girl weapon", or however she stated it, would have been pretty funny if she was a precocious child. As an adult woman, no matter how "nerdy" her character was supposed to be, repeating her taunt over and over was just absurdly odd. So many plot points that didn't advance at a natural pace made the whole movie come across as an embarrassing effort. There were some glimpses of what could have been, though, and I would love to see another movie with Lange and MacLaine as good friends.