Italy and Ice Cream. What Could Go Wrong?

We meet Danielle, our heroine, in Chef’s garb, constructing some fussy, fiddly, fancy Jenga towers of multicolored food that personally, I would be hesitant to eat, although they photograph well. Her restaurant, which is an expensive “special occasion only” type of place has temporarily closed its doors due to lack of customers. She is trying to construct a new menu in order to retain the investment of her rich friend, whose Dad is urging him to stop putting money into Danielle’s restaurant and invest in something safer. But Richie Rich is going to give her one last chance. She has a month to convince him that she can make a success out of her restaurant. Yes, the dreaded Hallmark Deadline. When she gets home to her sister, she flops down on the couch and scarfs down a take out pizza with gusto and decides she must go to Inspirational Italy to get inspired.

**Spoiler Alert**

The first 5 minutes is a metaphor for the whole movie. To wit, to be a successful chef, she must learn she should cook what she loves to eat: down home Italian food in a setting in which people feel comfortable, at ease, and want to gather. Of course she doesn’t get this until the movie’s 1 hour and 45 minute mark including commercials and promos for Hallmark’s “Merry Movie Week” marathon. And first she has to meet a handsome gelato-obsessed cafe owner, travel around the Italian countryside with him on a Vespa, and hobnob with the local townspeople.

**End Spoiler**

Just to fill in some details. It is Smokin’ McDamn-inetti’s father’s cafe and the old stick-in the-mud refuses to let his son offer unusual exciting flavors of gelato to his clientele. Despite the fact that this is what his beloved dead wife did every summer, he won’t budge an inch and let his son honor his mother and indulge his adventurous side. He was just awful seemingly just for the sake of being awful because I really didn’t get it. I mean, what is the big deal? One of the townspeople is Danielle’s pretty landlord who becomes her wise friend and gives her a memoir of an American tourist who visited their small picturesque town many years ago.  Danielle’s activities start to mirror the activities of the lady in the book. One gets the feeling that this book will have something to do with Danielle’s epiphany and the happy ending! The pretty landlord is the one who gets the requisite secondary romance.

**Another Spoiler**

It turns out the lady who wrote the book is the mother of one of the cafe’s regulars, the archetypal wise old sage,  who gives Danielle some wise advice and sparks her breakthrough regarding the kind of food and atmosphere the new version of her restaurant should have. She wins over Richie Rich via a zoom call, but what about her relationship with the hot lovelorn Gelato-making frustrated world-traveller? One of them is going to have to move. Guess who?

Despite my  world and Hallmark-weary tone, I did like this one, as I’ve liked 2 of the other the #PassportToRomance offerings. (But I am ready to move on to the next theme.) The story was well constructed and Danielle and Giancarlo’s  romantic and career journeys made sense. The Italian small town and countryside settings were fine and the side characters were engaging, except for the awful father. Special mention to the kid who played the 9 year-old “I prefer Strawberry” food critic, Nico. I particularly liked Michele Rosiello who played Giancarlo. He really made me believe his sizzling attraction and love for Danielle despite getting little to no reciprocal help from his leading lady, Hunter King, in my view. God knows why, he was very attractive, and I’ve had no problem with the actress in the past. The character was likable, but I just didn’t feel the romance on her end.