Prime Video’s messiest romance saga just pulled off the kind of comeback that will make critics groan and wonder why they bother reviewing movies at all. 2023’s My Fault (Culpa Mía) and 2024’s Your Fault (Culpa Tuya) have surged back up the Prime Video streaming chart ahead of the release of the final part of the Wattpad-adapted trilogy. Currently, the movies are holding their respective number three and number four spots on the global Prime Video chart, once more drawing in audiences despite their appalling reviews.
If there was ever a disconnect between viewership numbers and Rotten Tomatoes scores, then adaptations of Wattpad or fan-fiction stories are usually where you will find some of the most unbalanced results. This was certainly the case when My Fault (Culpa Mia) landed on Prime Video in 2023 to a huge debut, but a rare and dreaded 0% score from critics. The film was touted by Prime Video as one of the platform’s most-watched non-English original movies ever, and there was never really any doubt that a sequel (two and an English, London-based spinoff/remake to be exact) would happen.
And it did as Your Fault (Culpa Tuya) arrived a year later, bringing slightly better reviews and the same surge in interest on Prime Video that it was always going to deliver. This month, the final part of the trilogy, Our Fault (Culpa Nuestra) will hit Prime Video, and it seems like many fans have been catching up with the first two movies again in advance of its arrival on October 16.
Are the “Culpables” Really That Bad?
There is often something about movies and TV shows – mostly in either the erotic or romance genres – that are based on WattPad novels, or novels from similar platforms, that never connects with critics. With plenty of melodrama, glossy lifestyles, and a forbidden love story, the “Culpables” movies have all the usual elements you find in various online story forums that have, over time, delivered such phenomenons as Fifty Shades of Grey.
My Fault (Culpa Mia) has already been a chart topper several times over the last two years, but the reviews for the first movie in the saga from a critic standpoint have not changed. For a taster, M.N. Miller’s review for Ready Steady Cut gives a good idea of everything critics hated about the movie, writing:
“While González ramps up a significant amount of heat here, the frequent tone shifts, lack of focus, and cheesy, Velveeta-like dialogue are too much for the likable young leads to overcome in such an overblown, soapy picture.”
However, audiences scored the movie a solid 83%, signally one of those movies that really appeals to its core audience – which is millions strong – and there is nothing that was going to make this a “bad” movie in their eyes. In the end, if millions have been happy with the “cheesy” and “unrealistic” dialogue and storylines of the novels, then seeing it played out on screen was not going to suddenly give them a reason to hate it.
One reason the “Culpables” movies remain popular, regardless of reviews, is thanks to the massive success of the novels on Wattpad. Culpa Nuestra was downloaded more than 75 million times, making the fan base behind it as big as it possibly could be. It may not be Shakespeare to many, but once they take hold, it is hard to put them down. Now, it looks like the stage is being set for Our Fault (Culpa Nuestra) to take over Prime Video in a couple of weeks’ time. You have been warned.
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My Fault
- Release Date
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June 8, 2023
- Director
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Nicole Wallace, Anastasia Russo, Gabriel Guevara
- Writers
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Domingo González, Mercedes Ron
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Your Fault
- Release Date
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December 27, 2024
- Runtime
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120 minutes
- Director
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Domingo González
- Writers
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Sofía Cuenca
- Producers
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Álex de la Iglesia
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Nicole Wallace
Noah Morgan
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Gabriel Guevara
Nick Leister
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Iván Sánchez
William Leister
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