About halfway through “Drawn Together,” Marfil (Ester Expósito), tells her bodyguard, soon after their temptation begins to tip over the line, that she’ll always leave the door open for him. The moment is followed by a shot of the two staring at each other longingly through a literal open door, soundtracked by a song wailing, over and over: “Desire!”
It’s a funny microcosm of a film that is mostly characterized by the rote literalization of its steamy feelings and narrative ideas. Directed by Óscar Pedraza and adapted from a novel of the same name, this is a low-grade soap opera with betrayal, mob politics and forbidden romance. After Marfil, the daughter of a Spanish tycoon, is kidnapped and mysteriously returned, she is placed under the protection of Sebastian (Hugo Diego Garcia), a bodyguard who has no patience for his charge and is hiding his own secrets.
Naturally, animosity only conceals a romantic — and ultimately, when push comes to pleasure, a sexlessly erotic — charge. Their reluctant, budding love affair, a bland iteration of the one in “The Bodyguard” (which is explicitly referenced, perhaps to stave off any accusations of unoriginality), has the bluntly constructed and executed pleasures of fan fiction.
In direction and performance, this is a movie that automates each of its elements, perhaps because it knows the mere existence of those parts — beautiful stars, espionage, spicy affair — are enough to play on streaming. The proof is in the pudding: The sequel has already been filmed.
Drawn Together
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 38 minutes. Watch on Prime Video.