Wetsuits and cover-ups.

Lacey Chabert plays a sous chef who dreams of running her own restaurant. Her “boyfriend” is a famous chef and her boss. When he not only fails to introduce her to an influential food critic who is in raptures over her food and concepts but takes credit for her work as well, she dumps him. So that was good on her. She flees to her Aunt June’s mansion in Hawaii which is right on the beach and must be worth over $30,000,000. She starts to take surfing lessons from a handsome still sad widower.  And in what must be a first for Hallmark, he doesn’t have any kids! Crazy! Other than that, there are no surprises here plot-wise at least. By the end of the movie she learns to surf, wins a $50,000 cooking contest with sad widower’s nice brother, gives her disrespectful user of an ex-boyfriend a final heave-ho (he followed her to Hawaii), gets the guy, and opens her own restaurant there in paradise.

The most interesting thing about this one was waiting for Lacey Chabert to put on a bathing suit. Here she is in Hawaii, living on the beach, taking surfing lessons in the ocean, and she never puts on a swimsuit. What makes it even odder is that her love interest who is giving her lessons is very tan and fit with many abs fully displayed in appropriate swimwear. The optics of it were so weird, that Hallmark scriptwriters felt the need to address it by having him tease her about the wetsuit when she shows up for her first lesson. Something along the lines of, “You’re not in Cape Cod in the winter, you’re in Hawaii, in the summer.” It doesn’t work. Not even a one-piece in the whole movie. I guess when Lacey Chabert doesn’t want to wear a swimsuit, she doesn’t wear a swimsuit! I don’t really blame her for her modesty, but going forward, maybe she should avoid filming in tropical climes when she is required to go in the ocean.

August 29, 2022