Rescued

This movie is an easy target for grumpy reviewers because it features a lead girl who is a real ditz and clumsy to boot. Now clumsy is one thing. Done right it can be cute. And ditzy can also be cute. (Sadly too many female-centric movies to mention). But combine them together and things will get very irritating very fast. Here is one example out of a whole grab bag. Emily knocks our hero’s cell phone off the boat right before they are going to venture alone into dangerous waters (Clumsy). She doesn’t tell him what happened leaving them cut off from civilization on their expedition (Ditzy and Stupid). Together: insufferable. And I’m not even going to go into her self-hating obsession with her cheating ex-boyfriend. There. I’m done.

Emily’s best friend Phoebe has defied her mother’s dream of a traditional country-club wedding for her daughter and has opted for a beach wedding in beautiful Costa Rica. This was a source of drama I wish they had devoted more time to. Emily, being the maid of honor, has arranged for the accommodations and planned out the fun activities for the bridal party. Which is quite the head-scratcher as we are treated  to a retrospective of the various ways in which Emily’s ways have wreaked havoc in their lives. And the bizarre topper is that Phoebe has put Emily in charge of the priceless vintage wedding rings which are part of her family’s tradition and a legacy from her great grandmother. Guess what happens. I won’t tell you but it involves a jungle, a kleptomaniac monkey, and a volcano. I exaggerate for effect. A volcano is not actually involved but it is hinted at as a vague threat.

Costa Rica is really beautiful. I can see why so many Americans retire there. Going by this Hallmark movie, there doesn’t appear to be any of the grinding poverty so on display in other Central American countries. I enjoyed the scenery. Speaking of scenery, Christopher Russell plays Ryan, the groom’s best friend and the love interest for Emily, played by popular Rhiannon Fish. He is a tour guide there in Costa Rica who has already had to step in to upgrade the Emily-arranged accommodations for the party (why didn’t the bridal couple put him in charge to begin with?) Emily is offended, which is par for the course as relations between them have always been tense because she thinks he doesn’t like her and he thinks she doesn’t like him. When Emily absentmindedly leaves the priceless wedding bands in her pink backpack hanging from a tree branch on the edge of  the jungle and the backpack is stolen by the previously mentioned monkey, their adventure begins. Meanwhile, the rest of the wedding party and Momzilla are left to enjoy their Costa Rican dream wedding weekend while consumed by worry and fear for the maid of honor and the groom’s best friend apparently lost in the deadly jungle and mysteriously incommunicado.

I was prepared to really dislike this movie, but Rhiannon Fish did quite well with a character that was very grating on the nerves throughout most of the story.  And of course Christopher Russell’s impossibly handsome presence is always a port in a storm. I used to wish Hallmark would give him some roles that were more challenging, complex, and against his usual mensch-y good-guy type. And they have, rarely, but when the chips are down his calm and authentically nice (if vaguely amused) presence has saved many a Hallmark from disaster in my eyes. I appreciated the love and loyalty shared by Phoebe and Emily (despite Emily almost killing her with a smoothie on her first day in Costa Rica) And this one ended strongly with hapless Emily actually saving the day from a crushing blow, for once, not of her making. So this one, full of rescues of one sort or another, also rescued itself. I’m rounding up to a “7”, because I almost want to watch it (ahem Christopher Russell) again.