"Top End Wedding is the movie that will make you fall back in love with rom-coms."

Recently, I fell in love for two whole hours.

Now, I’m sure some people will shake their heads and say that it’s just not possible to fall in love with a movie, but to those people, I would say “you just haven’t found the right rom-com yet, when you know, you just know”.

Top End Wedding, the new Australian romantic comedy co-written by and starring Australian actress  Miranda Tapsell, is less of a movie about a girl ‘getting’ the guy and more a true love story, a celebration of Australian culture and a look at what it’s really like to reconnect with your home and your family after you’ve ventured off into the wider world.

Miranda Tapsell plays ambitious corporate lawyer Lauren, who is living in Adelaide and angling for a huge promotion with her brilliant yet domineering boss Hampton (Kerry Fox), her future at the company is all contingent on her ability to woo a new set of high profile clients in a big meeting, which she does, but only after breaking her heel and practically falling into a basket of doughnuts.

Straight away we know that Lauren is a leading lady who can handle herself in high pressure (and high sugar) situations.

While incessantly ignoring calls from her mum in Darwin, Lauren rushes home to celebrate with her boyfriend Ned (Gwilym Lee) who ends up dropping down on one knee and proposing, instead of filling her in on his own drastic career change from that day. With only 10 days to pull off the wedding before she dives into her new job, Lauren jumps on a plane with Ned to Darwin so she can get married in her hometown.

However, when the soon to be newlyweds land in Darwin they are greeted by Lauren’s distraught dad Trevor (Huw Higginson) because her mother Daphne (Ursula Yovich), has taken off on an unspecified journey of self-discovery.

Then it becomes a race against the clock to both pull off the wedding and find Lauren’s mum.

Take a look at the trailer for new Aussie rom-com Top End Wedding.

What Top End Wedding manages to do brilliantly well is tell lots of genuine human stories and explore a number of relationships against the backdrop of a fast-paced and raucous comedy that shows off some of Australia’s most spectacular landscapes.

Lauren and Ned are a refreshing leading couple thanks to their genuine relationship and the way you see them change together over the course of the movie. As they retrace Daphne’s movements across Darwin in a bid to bring her home for the wedding it really shines a spotlight on how your parent’s stories and histories can become lost when you build your own life.

What’s refreshing about Top End Wedding’s inclusion into the romantic comedy arena is that it carefully takes the best elements from the genre – a dramatic airport scene, rousing musical moments and a love story most of us can only dream of – and leaves the rest behind.

This is not a movie with bitchy mean girl foes to triumph over and there is not a make-over montage scene in sight. Instead, Lauren’s gaggle of hometown girlfriends are realistic, hilarious and bursting with warmth.

Tying up a romantic comedy is always a tough mission to complete since many of us already have an inkling of how things will turn out, but Top End Wedding manages to really stick the landing.

The beautiful scenery and locations featured in Top End Wedding act as almost secondary characters in the movie, with their own unique stories to tell. The film is set in the Northern Territory and features scenes on the glorious Tiwi Islands.

In fact, the setting for the film originally came from a discussion between the co-writers of the Top End Wedding Miranda Tapsell and Josh Tyler, when Miranda was discussing her own childhood growing up in the Northern Territory with him, it sounded so incredible so they decided to set a film there, knowing its a part of Australia not often explored on screen.

It’s a multilayered emotional experience and, much like attending a real-life wedding of loved ones, I found myself shedding a tear at certain moments. So, just a warning now that you might want to covertly pop a few tissues in your bag before RSVPing yes to seeing Top End Wedding.

In an entertainment world that seems overrun with brutal reality TV shows and confronting true crime offerings, Top End Wedding is here to remind us of the healing power of a perfectly made rom-com and how good it feels to fall in love with a whole new world of characters.

Top End Wedding will play in cinemas Australia-wide from 2 May, it is rated M.