An Obscure Hallmark and Rightly So.

This 2019 Hallmark slipped under my radar, and now I know why. The plot is the usual woman with a problematic boyfriend going back to her hometown and meeting her ex-true love. She is a successful matchmaking App producer and committed city girl (Chicago) and learns not only that her golfing-banker fiance comes in a distant second to her old boyfriend but that her hometown in Florida (St. Petersburg) is the place for her. (she decides to stay and be in love with her old boyfriend when she finds out he is rich and successful and not the slacker she thought he was. Score another one for True Love.) We get the hint that the fiance is pretty clueless in the first place when he proposes with a ring that must be a size 14 and she literally can’t close her fingers together. The complication is that she met him using her own app, whose gimmick is to figure proximity into the equation (“Oh, so you found the love of your life? Or zipcode?”) Breaking up with him will do her no favors with the corporation who is looking to buy her app and take it national. But break up with him she does. I did appreciate how she sends him back to Chicago pretty early and doesn’t beat around the bush. Unfortunately, she also becomes disenchanted with her own app because it only matches people on location and compatibility and not love. Which makes zero sense. Since when is an app expected to make you fall in love? Anyway.

The acting is subpar from the Florida boyfriend, “Kai”, and uninspired from the actress who plays our heroine. She is very peevish and scowls throughout although very beautiful. Kai sneaks up on her constantly from behind which got to be a little creepy. It is amusing though that he scurries away pretty quickly when he meets her fiance who absolutely towers over him. Gosh, he was tall.

Although the basic plot couldn’t have followed the basic Hallmark blueprint #3 any more boringly, there was another cute line other than the Zipcode quip mentioned above. When Our heroine disses Florida (which is well showcased here) as having no seasons. Kai retorts. “Seasons? We have seasons: Pollen, Summer, Hurricane, and Football.” Cute and so true.

March 9, 2022