“Picture This” is a rom-com that’s more effective as com than rom, with several big laughs and a thoroughly winning lead performance from Simone Ashley. 

The star of “Bridgerton” season 2 steps into a high-concept formula and elevates it above the tropes with her naturalism and likability. She’s so compelling, it makes you wish the filmmakers didn’t bog her down early on with stereotypically daffy, klutzy character traits. 

In remaking the Australian romantic comedy “Five Blind Dates,” director Prarthana Mohan and writer Nikita Lalwani have taken a familiar genre and infused it with a cultural specificity. They’ve set these romantic shenanigans within the month-long build-up to an extravagant Indian wedding, giving them a colorful vibrancy. Viewers of Indian descent will surely appreciate certain pieces of dialogue and musical choices, and the costume design is dazzling. But reminiscent of “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” there’s also a universality to the familial antics on display. 

Ashley stars as Pia, a photographer who runs a London portrait studio. She’s struggling to pay the bills, but she’s such a purist about her artistry that she wouldn’t dream of shooting passport photos to keep the lights on. Her sole employee is also her gay BFF, Jay (a hilarious Luke Fetherston), and the two enjoy a snappy banter that’s as profane as it is affectionate. Mohan has an eye for inspired settings, staging one of their early conversations about love within a cool art installation, for example. 

Pia doesn’t want to get married and have kids as society expects, even as her younger sister, Sonal (Anoushka Chadha), prepares for her own lavish nuptials, complete with glittering jewels their mother (Sindhu Vee) has set aside for them. It’s the stuff of romantic literature since the dawn of time. She becomes especially resistant to the prospect when Charlie (Hero Fiennes Tiffin), the ex who broke her heart a few years ago, keeps showing up at the festivities as the best man to her maid of honor. 

But a family meeting with an astrologer to determine the bride and groom’s compatibility includes a prediction for Pia, as well: She’ll meet her soul mate over her next five dates. Of course, these go spectacularly wrong in a variety of ways. The most amusing one takes place during a yoga class, where the handsome teacher is also a smug singer/guitarist and self-styled guru. Phil Dunster is nearly unrecognizable in the role, and he gets to deliver the biggest laugh-out-loud line in the whole movie. It’s the “Ted Lasso”/”Bridgerton” crossover you never knew you needed in your life. 

A date with the man-child son of a billionaire is needlessly puerile, hinging as it does on poop jokes and an exploding, high-tech toilet. We can do better than that, can’t we? But for the most part, the incredulous way Pia suffers through these awkward scenarios is consistently amusing. She’s so appealing that it makes you wish there were more of a romantic spark between her and Charlie. He seems nice enough, and Fiennes Tiffin is fine in the role, but there’s not much to him or their connection. We never really feel the stakes of what they lost, even though they hash out their breakup in painstaking detail. 

Ashley actually enjoys a more convincing chemistry with Fetherston as her best friend. Their scenes together have an infectious energy, but their friendship also feels genuine in the film’s quieter, more vulnerable moments.  

“Picture This” isn’t exactly reinventing the genre–the generic title and poster and the copious use of split screens and pop songs make that clear from the start–but it’s a pleasant enough if you’re flipping around on Prime Video, and it hopefully means there’s more in store for the film’s charismatic star. 

On Prime Video now.