(Credit: Netflix)

Sometimes, Netflix becomes a home for movies that have initially performed poorly, attracting thousands of viewers years later without a solid reason. It might be because a certain actor is in the film, or simply because it’s brand new to the platform, becoming exposed to viewers who might not have heard of it otherwise.

This has been the case with Aloha, a rom-com that performed terribly upon its release in 2015, faring equally as bad at the box office as it did with critics. Yet, on Netflix, it’s currently in the top ten most-watched movies of the week, sitting alongside newer releases like Rebel Ridge and The Deliverance. 

Directed by Cameron Crowe, the movie marked a significant slump in his directorial career, which began with much more success in the 1980s. The filmmaker wrote Fast Times at Ridgemont High before making his feature directorial debut with Say Anything. He subsequently earned further acclaim with movies like Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous, and Vanilla Sky, making him a well-known figure in the industry.

With Aloha, Crowe rounded up a talented cast of well-known stars, including Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone, Rachel McAdams, Alec Baldwin, Bill Murray, and John Krasinski. Yet, they evidently couldn’t save this disaster, which scraped minimal nominations, with the most significant coming from the Teen Choice Awards.

Cooper plays the main character, Brian, a man who used to work for the US Air Force. Despite no longer being employed, he returns to Hawaii after being asked by a businessman who wants to create a space centre. While Brain spends time figuring things out in Hawaii, he grapples with several romantic entanglements.

He reconnects with a previous girlfriend, played by McAdams, who is now in love with someone else and has started a family. Meanwhile, Brain also finds himself deeply attracted to Stone’s Allison, a fighter pilot.

However, it wasn’t just the uninspired screenplay that caused criticism, it was something much more serious. The movie was accused of whitewashing its characters, most prominent within the casting of Allison, who was written as possessing part Hawaiian and part Chinese heritage. Of course, Stone, the actor who played her, is fully white.

Her character is meant to appear white, and she spends several scenes explaining to people that she is actually of a diverse background—you just can’t tell at first glance. Crowe explained on his blog that the character was inspired by a red-haired woman he met with a similar story.

“Whether that story point felt hurtful or humorous has been, of course, the topic of much discussion. However I am so proud that in the same movie, we employed many Asian-American, Native-Hawaiian and Pacific-Islanders, both before and behind the camera,” he wrote.

“I am grateful for the dialogue. And from the many voices, loud and small, I have learned something very inspiring. So many of us are hungry for stories with more racial diversity, more truth in representation, and I am anxious to help tell those stories in the future,” he concluded.