Surreal but Nice

Hallmarks set in the U.K. always have an extra appeal for me and one with “Notting Hill” in the title immediately got my attention for obvious reasons. And I’m sure in developing and titling this the powers that be knew that I would not be the only one who had to at least give it a look. Well of course this is no Notting Hill. It is its own movie, but shared enough beats with the real Notting Hill so as not to disappoint. Loved the shout-out to Horse and Hound.

Georgia Bright is a special education teacher from Indiana who is visiting her younger sister in London. She is at a career crossroads. She has to decide between taking the practical and conservative path and go back to school for her Master’s degree to advance her career, or join a temporary program that will take her around the world teaching special needs children in other countries. Because their mother died when her little sister was very young, she essentially has always had to take the mature safe road, sacrificing her own desires in order to help bring her sister up. It is never stated, but one gets the idea that their father, who will join the girls later in London, was more “live for the moment” and a bit feckless. When he showed up later to join the girls for Christmas, I expected some trouble and strife between the three. But though he was “the fun parent,” he was a good guy, not an idiot. So crisis averted.

As for her sister Lizzie, she has a great job at “The Museum of Britain” and to Georgia’s consternation, a very serious boyfriend, whose lovely family has taken her into their hearts. On the first day of Georgia’s arrival, she gets coffee spilled on her by a handsome stranger at the street market in the aforementioned district of West London. He takes her to his parents’ house around the corner to clean up and they have an instant connection. Things proceed as usual and nicely. He is a famous and idolized soccer star who is out of commission due to a torn ACL and is seemingly unaware of how serious this injury is to athletes. They could have used a medical consultant on this one, but disregarding how things are in real life is par for the course for Hallmark. Anyway, he is charmed by the fact that Georgia has no idea who he is.  She notices that people are constantly acting weird around him, following him, and taking pictures, and the truth comes out. She acts very unreasonably falsely accusing him of lying to her. But she comes to her senses pretty quickly. Also, it turns out that he is the big brother of Lizzie’s boyfriend and is privy to the happy secret that Lizzie is going to get proposed to this Christmas. Not knowing (yet) about the connection between Georgia and his family, he lets this information slip.

There was a minimum of angst and drama in this, although there were some touchy moments regarding Georgia, who dedicated her life to Lizzy while she was growing up. She feels marginalized by Lizzie who is on the brink of getting engaged to be married and being made one of his family without her being even aware of the situation. Predictably, she thinks Lizzie is being too hasty, but she was not consulted, was she? Refreshingly, the tension between the two was aired out and smoothed over pretty quickly. Graham, the injured soccer star, is also having to deal with the fact that his career may be over, and who is he if he is not a soccer player? Based on what the two experience this Christmas, they will both decide which of their forks in the road to take. Will their separate paths tank their growing relationship? Time for a “One Year Later” and we are not disappointed.