The Devil’s in the Details

This one was the Hallmark version of The Devil Wears Prada but with footwear. The plot was very basic and stayed in its lane with all the predictable plot points coming up as expected and where expected. A young(ish) cobbler working at her father’s shoe repair shop gets a chance to widen her horizons by getting her foot in the door of  a prestigious shoe designer as a receptionist. Her dream is to be an actual shoe designer herself. Sure enough,  she is quickly promoted to being the Miranda Priestly character’s personal assistant (named Delaney Diaz in this movie). Addie’s  love interest, Austin, is the Stanley Tucci character who is not gay but young(er) and eligible. Olivier Renaud plays Austin, Miranda’s (Delaney’s) “PR guy.” At least that’s what they call him. He works for his father’s big and important PR firm. It’s weird though because Delaney seems to be his only client and he is always around doing all kinds of stuff besides PR, like window dressing and hanging pairs of shoes over a walkway for promotional purposes. But this keeps him close at hand so Austin and Addie can develop a relationship, and that’s the important thing. Wait a minute. Doesn’t hanging shoes on a wire signal gang or drug activity? Probably he didn’t know that.

Of course Addie gets herself in trouble due to her naivety and trusting friendliness and almost brings the company to its knees, but then turns around and saves the day with her shoe designing acumen and motivational pep talks to the Miranda Priestly character. Obviously tweaked a bit to be more Hallmarky. Meanwhile, she learns how to provide Delaney Diaz her morning iced latte without the ice melting. It’s more complicated than you might think.

It was all pretty standard stuff if more derivative than usual. Some of Hallmark’s best efforts have been based on well-known romantic comedies and it was fine due to amusing well-written scripts and likable characters that were well-acted. This one didn’t offer any of those saving graces. The Delaney Diaz character was all over the place, going back and forth between being a mean tough taskmaster to being easily manipulated with a heart of mush. She was supposed to be an icon and leading light of the shoe design world but had suffered some setbacks and failures which has destroyed her confidence. She basically has sold out putting her name on inferior very basic shoes that she doesn’t personally design in order to save her company. But she still acts like a diva and is worshipped as such by all and sundry. Her character and the way she acted did not make sense and she did some really dumb things. As did everyone. The actress, Alexandra Castillo, did a good job with a character that was probably difficult to play. Unfortunately, the actors who played the two leads were too old for the parts as written. Addie’s father treated her like she was 10 and Austin was completely under the thumb of his father, and complacently so, until the end. That’s ok for characters in their early twenties, just finding their feet, but is not a good look if you’re well into mature adulthood. Especially for the Austin character who otherwise looked and acted like a grown-ass man pushing 40. Not even an attempt to explain the stunted state of his personal and professional life. Again, like he was 22.

Cutting to the chase, Delaney rediscovers her creative spark, her new line of samples is manufactured in  2 days, and her company is saved, all thanks to Addie who gets promoted to shoe designer. Austin starts his own PR firm. The characters and what they did seemed to twist themselves into knots in order to serve the usual Hallmark beats rather letting than the things we expect, grudgingly accept. or even like, from Hallmark flow naturally. I struggled with this one and not in a fun way. My advice?  This one did nothing to go out of it’s way to be good, so I wouldn’t go out of my way to watch it.