An Unexpected Valentine

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If You Find a Ring on Valentine’s Day, You Know What to Do

**Spoilers**

With Robert Buckley as the lead guy, how can you go wrong? It would be very difficult, although certainly doable in the hands of our friends at Hallmark. (No offence! Love you!) Luckily, his rapport with with the ever reliable Lacey Chabert was almost a given. She always makes the most of her established romantic comedy credentials when she really clicks with her costar. This one lived up to the funny and charming previews we were favored with last week. Although a bit marred by some improbable departures from what the realities of traffic and parking availability are in New York City and some other things, the fast-paced quest-type romance really hit the target.

After catching a ride share from work and after everyone but she is dropped off, Lacey finds a diamond ring which must be an engagement ring. Since Finn (Robert Buckley) tells her he cleans his cab every night, it must belong to one of his fares from today. Despite a less than satisfactory dating history, Lacey is a romantic at heart with empathy to spare and prevails on the more cynical Finn to go back and help her find the owner, who, since it is Valentine’s Day, was surely planning to propose with the ring tonight. In addition to that urgent circumstance, Lacey has an important presentation for her designer chocolate campaign at 9 PM that night, and Finn has a gallery showing of his photographic art that he must attend as well. What follows is a slow-burn development of their relationship as they look for the owner of the ring in between completing Finn’s Valentine deliveries.

Their adventures with the people they meet along the way were just mildly entertaining, but the romantic chemistry and banter between the two leads overrode the more boring parts. While supposedly on more than one urgent deadline they spend an inordinate amount of time with coffee breaks, dancing at a club and on the street, making pizza, and volunteering to temporarily man a food truck. And who immediately pulls their car over the second the check engine light goes on? As the day and night wore on, I began to get anxious over Lacey and Finn’s disregard for their professional commitments and it was distracting. Important people (Lacey’s corporate clients and Finn’s “art-snob”, as he so rudely calls them, potential customers) were waiting for them to show up. Not to mention their put-upon colleagues who have to deal with the awkward absences of the stars of their shows. It became quite uncomfortable for me. I must say, Finn, in particular, was very blasé about the people who can make or break his career as a photographic artist. Especially for a guy who has to supplement his income driving a ride-share/delivery van. Anyway, near the end, they finally find the nervous groom-to-be, who somehow had not noticed that the ring-box was not in his jacket pocket, and deliver the engagement ring he didn’t even know was missing just in time. It was one of several funny scenes. Lacey manages to make a credible appearance at her affair and Finn favors the art gallery with his presence. Briefly and not very graciously. For such a nice guy, he was a bit of a diva. What was up with that?

This was a Hallmark set entirely in New York City (though filmed in Canada, of course) and was a fairly fresh approach for Hallmark. We did have the interrupted kiss near the end which was particularly frustrating since Lacey backed off for no. Reason. Whatsoever. Girl! I really looked forward to this one and despite the weaknesses in the plot, it did not disappoint. Great chemistry between appealing and good actors count for a lot. It was fun and romantic.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

The Wedding People

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By Alison Espach

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Having not read a novel I really really liked in forever unless by one of my core favorite authors, which are few and far between, I thought I’d branch out a little. This had won several awards, received a lot of hype, and going by the reviews and the description of the plot, it seemed like it would fit the bill. It’s described as heartwarming literary fiction with dark humor, wisdom, wit, hope, and maybe a bit of romance. And it was all of those things.

We meet our main character, Phoebe Stone, as she arrives alone at the grand Cornwall Inn in Newport RI. Curiously, after reading the reviews and the first pages of this book, I had the idea that Phoebe was in her 50s or 60s. But she is only maybe 42. We also learn she is an adjunct English professor at a small college in St. Louis, Missouri. She is still haunted by her divorce and we learn that she has also wrestled with fertility problems. She has been isolated and lonely, her only companion being her cat, Harry, who has just died of cancer. Fed up with herself and her life, and armed with a bottle of Harry’s pain pills, her plan is to commit suicide. But the hotel, which she has longed dream of visiting, has been taken over by a lively wedding party which has the whole place exclusively booked for 6 days. Phoebe, as usual, is an outsider. But what does she care? After a nice dinner in the best room in the place, she plans to do the deed that night anyway. She meets the Lila bride in the elevator, and, since Phoebe really has nothing left to lose, frankly tells her, when questioned, why she is there. Lila is upset about that, not out of compassion or empathy, but because she does not want a dead body to ruin her perfect wedding. She follows Phoebe to her room to try to get her to change her mind. Or at least wait until after her wedding is over. Phoebe has always led a controlled, careful, and small life, never wanting to rock any boats. But now that she just doesn’t care anymore, for the first time ever, she is honest and fearless in her interaction with the spoiled bride. And she likes it. We find out that Lila, brash and not afraid to show her true self to Phoebe, is an entirely different person with her friends and family. Lila’s confidences spark Phoebe’s curiosity. After Lila finally leaves Phoebe to join her party beneath Phoebe’s balcony, she finds she doesn’t want to die just yet.

The crowd laughs, and Phoebe wonders if Lila is laughing…. But Phoebe will never know what happens—by the time Lila’s mother is finished talking, Phoebe will be dead. Phoebe will not get to know how the speech ends—or how anything ends. And Phoebe does not like this. Phoebe always finishes a book or a movie, even a bad one.

Energized by the freedom of being herself with Lila, she decides to hang around a while. (The feline pain pills proving to be ineffective.) She is drawn into Lila’s world and gets to know many of the wedding party, eventually agreeing to be Lila’s maid of honor. She is liked and respected by all for her common sense and wit. Lila is not the only one who seems to want to seek her out and confide in her.

Phoebe has nothing to lose here. She is not part of this family. She is not part of anything anymore. She is free in a way none of them are, so she kneels down and looks directly at the girl, as if it’s her from many years ago.
“We do ask that you keep all your belongings inside the boat,” the captain says softly. Juice looks at Phoebe as if she is making a choice about who to be, and Phoebe makes a choice, too. “Go ahead,” Phoebe says, because fuck it. If she is going to live, she’s going to live differently this time. “Let’s have our funeral.”

I really (really) liked this. Phoebe and Lila’s backstories added to their portrayal, and there were some twists and surprises which are always welcome. I loved the gossip and the peaks behind the curtain of the rich and privileged. Although not a very admirable character, I learned to care for the outrageous and unpredictable Lila as well as Phoebe. We are introduced to the important characters and fraught relationships in Lila’s life through her eyes, and, no surprise, learn there is a lot more to them than we may have thought. Phoebe’s inner observations are smart and funny, and there is plenty of situational comedy as well. As the actual wedding day approached, I found myself fervently hoping for certain outcomes and I was not disappointed.

Unfortunately, the book did lag in the middle, largely due to Phoebe’s unending learning curve. Her constant introspection and little insights into her life and why she acted the way she did were repetitious. It seems like nothing would do, when the author made a point, but for her to make it another dozen times in another dozen ways. Some entertainingly, yes, but some just overkill.

But her excellent writing carried the way past these patches and even though a little tiresome, I was always entertained.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

The Perfect Setting

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If It’s Saturday Night on the Hallmark Channel, It Must Be Belgium

In the last of Hallmark’s Winter Escape movies, we follow aspiring jewelry designer Abby and Hallmark to Beautiful Antwerp, Belgium, on a mission to save her grandfather’s jewelry store. I rather enjoyed this one for several reasons. Of course the glimpses we got of beautiful Belgium didn’t hurt.  The city sites and snippets of history and culture were folded organically into the movie rather than Hallmark putting the couple of destiny on some awkward sightseeing trip to take in the beauty and tourist traps of country and city. The scenery in these jaunts is always nice but plot and character-wise, it’s often just filler. I liked the glimpses into the jewelry designing and making profession as well. It was something a little off the beaten path for Hallmark. The interior set decoration was better than usual. Grandpa’s shop was cute and quaint like something out of a Disney movie. At one point I was afraid that a baking montage was going to be shoehorned in, but they wisely managed to fit in Belgian waffles without resorting to the bone-tired “Flirting with Flour” scene. Huge sigh of relief on my part.

The movie hit most of the usual beats that Hallmark is seemingly addicted to: Spousal death resulting in business struggles, big city heroine dissatisfied in love and career coming home to save the family legacy, a nemesis of some sort to amp up the tension, big gala/dance/ball, a competition for prize money that is the answer to all prayers: all were included and then some. There were even some “What the Heck!” moments to ponder. Abby helping Alexander, the love interest but also a chief competitor for the prize money, with his entry? Very nice but really? She has to win or lose the family business! Come on! Grandfather’s 30 carat uncut top quality diamond just sitting around his back room and not in a safe? And I could be wrong, but think her ex-fiance was referred to by two different names. There were others, but I won’t pile on.

Despite all of this, the show was saved by the romance and the talented cast. Both of the leads have previously appeared in one Hallmark movie each. Unfortunately the character Laci J. Maily played in her first effort was super annoying. The main character in this one was not annoying and her portrayal was very likable. I hope she is cast in more movies. Dutch actor David Elsendoorn was the best thing about his previous foray as a Hallmark hero. He was adorable and he was even more adorable and charming in this one. And I liked his character as well: He was a very good guy. And when faced with an ethical dilemma he took a strong stance and did the right thing. The two together had a supportive, friendly relationship which led to a believable romance with no eye-rolling silliness. Abby’s grandfather was a sweetheart and very lovable. Despite being lacking as a business owner, he was not annoying about it. He owned his weaknesses, and let his granddaughter save the day with no stubborn resistance or other stupid behavior whatsoever. Very unusual. Alexander’s father was a nasty piece of work and the actor who played him really nailed both his nastiness and his eventual reclamation. I wasn’t a fan of Suzanne McKenney’s eccentric portrayal of Nadia, Abby’s Chicago boss, who won’t give her a chance and who turns up for the Antwerp competition.  But it worked OK in context. She played it for laughs, two menacing characters perhaps being one too many. Plot-wise, I liked the happy resolution, and Abby’s wise career decision at the end. Her happy future in life and love seems set. Abby and Alexander’s movie ending kiss was way above average despite the height difference (1 foot, 2 inches), and little graphic hearts flew across the final scene. A fitting harbinger of Hallmark’s Loveuary movies coming right up.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

My Argentine Heart

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Back at the Estancia

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I got so caught up in the financial complications of this one that I didn’t pay full attention to the more important parts, namely the romance, the scenery, and our heroine Abril’s Boston/career v. Argentina/man dilemma.

Abril, Julie Gonzalo, is a business consultant whose reputation in the industry was ruined by almost driving a multi-billion dollar company into bankruptcy. She’s actually famous as a cautionary tale and is unemployable in her field. When her cousin calls her from Argentina, she tells her she has gotten an offer to buy their ranch they inherited from their grandparents. Belinda is tired of trying to run it on her own and wants to pursue her dream of owning a restaurant.  Abril prefers to have the ranch in her hip pocket as a possible vacation or retirement home, even though she hasn’t visited in years and years since she was 18.  She hotfoots it to Argentina to see if there is a way to keep the ranch and still allow Belinda to achieve her restaurant dream. If she can work some financial wizardry, maybe she can punch up her resume and get a job again. When she arrives, she finds out it is her former boyfriend who has made the below-market but fair offer for the ranch. She is having none of that. Diego has given up his finance career in Mexico City to return to the soil and find his soul by owning the ranch that his ancestors have been caretakers of for generations. While going over the financials, Abril discovers an old loan which has never been repaid. Belinda explains that the loan had been sold and then resold and she doesn’t even know who owns the loan now and that whoever owns it has never asked for payment. She was advised to just forget about it. Rest assured that this will eventually come back to bite them. Abril looks for investors so she and Belinda can retain ownership and keep from selling it to Diego.  She discloses the loan to an interested party, as she is legally and ethically bound to do, and he ends up finding the loan, buying it, and asking for immediate payment or else he will take over the ranch and they will get nothing. Now faced with a common enemy, Diego and Abril end their hostilities and start working together, etc., etc. She wishes she had just sold the ranch to Diego especially since Belinda really and truly wants nothing to do with it anymore.

So many questions. First off could a bank do that? The answer is yes, depending on the original terms of the loan. But they cannot demand late payment penalties like they are doing. Belinda and Abril’s lawyer, a very handsome guy and really nice and Belinda’s love interest, threatens to tie the whole thing up in court. To avoid that, the bank offers to forgive the loan if they sell them the ranch for a fraction of its worth, much below Diego’s offer. At no time are we told the amounts of Diego’s offer, the size of the loan, the income from the ranch, its fair market value, or what the bank offered for the ranch. So it was all very murky. Abril contacts a former colleague in America who owes her a solid about investing in the ranch. He doesn’t want to do that, but offers Abril a position in his company with a high salary because he feels partially responsible for Abril’s reputation being ruined and being a pariah in the industry. Abril is ecstatic because that “solves everything.”  Diego and Belinda are confused, as was I, but Abril explains that now that she has a steady income, she does not have to rely on her savings to keep body and soul together while she is unemployed. Along with her savings, if she sells her condo, she can personally pay off the loan, and then she and Belinda can accept Diego’s offer to buy the ranch.  Belinda and Diego point out to this double MBA in Finance that the loan is twice as much as Abril would get back from the sale. But Abril assures them that it is “not about the money”. I thought Belinda should have at least offered her a share in her restaurant-to-be but she doesn’t. On the other hand, has poor Belinda ever been compensated by Abril for doing all the work running the ranch? Just a random thought. Later Abril suggests to Diego that maybe they could be partners and run the ranch together (she, remotely, from Boston) and she gets a big “No”. He does not want to share.

 So if I figure correctly, Abril loses her share of the ranch plus half of all her savings and the sale price of her condo. “You’re investing $10 to get back $5!” She has to find a new and cheaper place while working for a company which offered her a job out of guilt. But that’s OK because she has the satisfaction of helping her cousin achieve her dream and knowing that her family ranch will be in the hands of someone who will preserve its legacy and not in the hands of a greedy bank. Methinks Abril got the short end of the stick, and I really wouldn’t encourage her to put this on her resume. On her way back to Boston, in a considerably worse financial situation than when she left, Diego enters stage left at the Iguazú Falls, to save the day. He has had a think, and decides that he has been too proud and will now let Abril be his partner in the ranch instead of paying her the cash as long as she stays there with him in Argentina. He loves her, she loves him, and Abril decides that is a fine idea and they kiss.

Juan Pablo Di Pace, who played Diego, was very handsome and charismatic and Julie Gonzalo has never looked lovelier. They were both born in Argentina and were pretty good together. The rest of the cast were all local actors, and they were all great. The Argentinian setting was interesting and beautiful. It all looked pretty authentic to me, except their gaucho clothes looked a little costume-y. But I felt like Abril thoughtlessly discounted Belinda’s desire to sell the Ranch and Diego rubbed me the wrong way as well. He was inflexible and stubborn off and on throughout most of the movie in addition to that chip of class warfare on his shoulder. At the end of the day, the things that bugged me outweighed what I liked.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

My Boyfriend’s Dogs

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Not a Romance, Really, but Still Cute.

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Erica Christianson is charming as the young woman who has to kiss a few dogs before she finds her match. Or rather, she has to learn to be herself and not mold herself to whatever she thinks would please her target guy. She starts running, pretends to like Jazz, golf, and read boring classics just to attract and keep him. The whole story is taken up with exploring how her 3 boyfriends lose their luster the more she gets to know them. The last one makes it all the way to the altar. She finally finds her perfect guy who happens to have been in the deep background all along. I didn’t like the way she didn’t learn her lessons with the first two, and because of that she was unfair to guy #3. Yes, he was obnoxious, but he doesn’t deserve his fate and neither did his snobby family. I still give it props for not following the usual template, but I do wish she and the right guy would have had more interactions.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

February 13, 2021

Polar Opposites

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Away with the Penguins

**Spoilers**

I guess it’s not that I’m not particularly a fan of the actress, Rhiannon Fish, I think it’s more the roles she seems to gravitate to. Or is put in. She does “hapless” really well. I did like her in one movie, but generally I find her acting a little too self conscious and stagey. “Look at me, I’m so quirky and cute.” I’m in the minority, however, in seeing the appeal. I actually just saw her in one of her early roles for Hallmark where she played “the sister”, and she was just fine.

Sometimes in order to get past the first 15 minutes of Hallmark movies, you have to ignore the absurd setups which serve to throw the hero and the heroine together. I have to say the one in this movie was one of the most preposterous ever. One day, Emma (Rhiannon Fish) gets a phone call from her father who is in the Antarctic researching penguins with which he is obsessed. The satellite phone keeps going in and out but Emma hears “Real Problem” “Ice sheet breaking up” “Real Danger” “all alone”, and “Killer Whale”. Combined with the chest pains he has lately been experiencing, concerned Emma concludes her father must be in grave danger and is calling for help. She decides she must hot foot it to the South Pole to rescue him from the killer whale, or avalanche or heart attack. A task she is uniquely qualified for as she is a courtroom artist. It doesn’t occur to her to question why he would call his daughter 1000s of miles away in America instead of the team at the substation a short snowmobile drive away from his outpost. The situation only gets muddier as Emma tells her friend that there was no luck getting through to anyone at the nearby research base, but then informs her that his satellite phone isn’t working and no one’s seen him for weeks. Kind of contradictory. It was noticed, screenwriter. Because I didn’t believe for a second that she did not talk to someone at the base, why didn’t Emma just ask the team at the substation to go check on her Dad and rescue him from whatever kerfuffle he has gotten himself into? As we find out later, it wouldn’t have been that big a deal. Because she is kind of a wackadoodle and it turns out the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

She finds out that another research team is catching a cruise ship from Buenos Aires to the base that her Dad drops in on from time to time. To her dismay, she is turned away from boarding the ship since she doesn’t have a ticket or any of the required permits and permissions. Since the Chief Officer turns down both cash and her credit card (because, you know, international law and safety) she decides to sneak on board pretending to be part of the research team. The handsome head of the team, smitten by Rhiannon Fish’s prettiness, puts his whole career on the line, not to mention risking possible arrest, to hide her away and help her.

After all kinds of shipboard high jinks, romantic and otherwise, she finally gets to the substation. She is loaned a snowmobile by head honcho Peggy and goes to her Dad’s Cabin where she finds out her Dad is perfectly fine and that it was all just a big misunderstanding. Turns out it was Lola the penguin’s life which was in danger, not his own. Boy, is his face red! What a crazy guy!

By this time, I was pretty much done. But I had to stick around to the bitter end if only to see if Rhiannon ever puts on a warm hat while tramping around or riding a snowmobile in the minus 50 degree weather. She doesn’t. But she does manage to put on a bathing suit. Rest assured, Lola is saved and reunited with her mate, Hugo, Dad and Peggy become a thing, and Emma moves to the South Pole to continue her romance with Andy the engineer. No one is arrested, and we leave Emma sitting outside in the snow illustrating a Children’s book about Penguins. Still hatless, bless her heart. This movie was filmed in Patagonia and has some nice scenery.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10.

In a Holidaze

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by Christina Lauren

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I was expecting more from this, especially after I started reading it. The premise, in which our main character keeps going back in time until she get things right, had a lot of promise. But the two main characters turned out to be disappointments, and a disappointment together. The very large and crowded secondary cast had no one entertaining enough to carry a secondary storyline to fall back on.

Andrew, our heroine’s love interest, was too much of a paragon. Perfect face, perfect body, and perfect personality. There was no room for growth, or change for the better, possible for him.

He smiles, and Lord, if the sun doesn’t come out from behind the clouds. Dimples so deep I could lose all my hopes and dreams inside them. I swear his teeth sparkle. As if on cue, a perfect brown curl falls over his forehead. You have got to be kidding me.

You’ve got to be kidding me too. The description reminded me of those old comic book representations of Superman. And that can be fine if he is the knight in shining armor character who has to rescue a victimized or seriously flawed heroine from a heinous antagonist. But this heroine had just failed to launch and needed to grow up. Besides, no disrespect to Superman, but I prefer Clark Kent. The love story seemed jejune and more of school girl crush. Our heroine, called variously Maelyn, Maisie, Mae, or Noodle, is 26. She had decided she was in love with “Mandrew” at 13 and has since only saw him for one week a year. Hardly a strong foundation for an enduring love story. Honestly, it had all the makings of “Girl thinks she is in love with the guy who checks all the boxes, but her real connection is with the less obvious underdog.” I would have preferred it if the love story started with perfect Andrew but ended with his flawed brother Theo, minus the gross face licking incident.

I glare across the table at him, but he doesn’t look up. He tucks into his Lucky Charms like a hungover frat boy. Theo is a dick.

Lots of room for growth and change there! A slow realization that Theo had been misunderstood and had hidden depths would have been much more interesting and romantic. But unfortunately the author(s) saddled him with some serious no-nos that eliminated that possibility and any suspense of who she would wind up with, despite my hoping for a miracle.

The second big thing that didn’t track with me was the time travel/Groundhog day thing. It didn’t make any sense, and I’m not even talking about “why this particular girl?” Although that would have been nice to know! By the way, our heroine had never heard of this modern classic Romantic Comedy, which did nothing to endear her to me. I was ok with her having 3 trips only which stopped at the halfway point. She was always whisked back in time right before she was about to be killed or maimed (or seriously injured.) At first I thought the universe was trying to save her life. The first time, an out of control truck is spinning towards her and feet from crashing into her car. The second time she is about to fall down the stairs. The third time, a heavy tree branch is about to fall on her head. But when the fourth time a life threatening incident occurred, nothing happened. She assumes the universe is trying to warn her she did something wrong (why?), which she didn’t. In fact, it occurred right after she decided to do something very right and be honest with Theo about Andrew. And throughout the book, it never seems to hit her that the first incident that triggered “Groundhog day” could also have killed her and her whole family. This possible tragedy waiting to happen (again) is never acknowledged.

Fairly early on, after the 3rd reliving of her cabin vacation, She actually learns the lessons she presumably is meant to learn, the secret to her being happy. She emails her boss and quits the job she hates, and is honest about her feelings for Andrew. But the penny doesn’t drop until almost the 80% mark.

I’ve spent years not trusting my ability to make decisions and quietly letting life just happen to me. It can’t be a coincidence that the moment I stopped being passive and followed my instincts, everything seemed to fall into place. I know what makes me happy—trusting myself. What a gift, right? I found happiness…
The only person whose expectations you have to live up to is yourself. When I thought it didn’t matter and no one would remember, I finally started living authentically. I quit my job. I was honest about my feelings. I went after what I wanted without fear.

I don’t know, it was all very confusing. But I won’t pile on about other things that bothered me.
The upshot is, that the premise could have been the foundation of a really good book with some depth and all sorts of interesting things going on, but the authors wasted it on what is only a light and frothy holiday (and pretty insipid) romance. It was like Christina Lauren purposely steered away from anything that could have made it substantial or really special.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

Love of the Irish

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A Three-Leaf Clover

I approached this premier of  Hallmark’s post-Christmas theme , Winter Escape, with not a lot of enthusiasm. I have had very bad luck with Irish-themed movies, and unlike the girl in this one, the luck of the Irish did not see fit to bestow itself upon me.

Fiona is a ballerina who just cannot get a break. She is always just one more audition away from her big starring role, and let’s face it, she is getting up there, especially for a ballet dancer. In her latest failure, she quit her job to try out for her dream role of Giselle, which of course she didn’t get. Bad news delivered by a red-haired and barely recognizable Ali Liebert, who also directed. While commiserating with her mother Helen, she finds a letter from Helen’s Birth Mother whom Helen not only has never met, but whose attempt to reach out has gone unanswered lo these many years (like around 15!). Helen is played by the elegant and beautiful Moira Kelly, beloved of Rom-Com connoisseurs everywhere for her role as Kate Mosely in The Cutting Edge. Since Helen’s antique shop has to be closed for a couple of weeks due to a plumbing problem, and they are both at temporary loose ends, Fiona plans a trip to the Emerald Isle to look up Helen’s long neglected birth mother. Also, Helen’s spouse is out of town on a business trip instead of being dead, or as good as dead, as they usually are in Hallmark’s parent/child Journeys of the Heart. No, he is a supportive husband and their marriage appears to be a happy one from all we ever hear about him. Which isn’t much.

On their first night in the picturesque Irish seaside town where they are staying, Fiona finds her destiny in the form of a pub owner and widowed father of a little girl whose ballet teacher moved to Vienna to breed ferrets (true story). Oh these quirky little details. For some reason, Fiona is very rude and ornery to him. Very Ugly American. But he seems to like it, as well as her dart throwing acumen, because he agrees to take her on a search for The Luck of the Irish tour of the countryside. While doing that, and following the clues to her mother’s birth mother’s whereabouts, need I say that Fiona and he fall for each other and Fiona also gets close to his ballet dancing daughter? Rhetorical question. Throw in community involvement and a vacant building which was formerly the local dance studio, while you’re at it.

Through all of this, Helen just kind of passively goes where ever Fiona leads. A measure of anticipation is achieved when her Bio-Mom is tracked down and Helen gets to know her through their mutual love of antiques before she finally properly introduces herself as her long lost daughter. “Call me Gigi” is nice enough but their emotional reunion left me largely unaffected because we never really hear any of her (or Helen’s) back story. So she’s kind of boring. Also, Helen is never held accountable for her lame and heartless non-response to nice Gigi’s letter.

The romance is strictly by the book, including the call from New York, luring Fiona back for another shot at Giselle. I won’t divulge the resolution of her dilemma, but she made the correct decision in my opinion. All in all I found this a pretty lackluster story which would have been very lackluster indeed without Moira Kelly, Shenae Grimes-Beech, and the very attractive Irish actor Stephen Hagan.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

Christmas in Rome

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Roman Holiday

Lacey Chabert and Sam Page make a good pair. I really liked the rapport they had together. They really matched. This 2019 production is set in Rome and although it had a lot of the usual travelogue elements, there was a lot more plot to this one and it definitely had its moments.

Lacey plays Angela who is an expatriate American living and working in Rome as a tour guide. She loves Rome, knows every little nook and cranny, and delights in taking her tourists off the beaten path to show them the real heart and soul of her favorite city. Unfortunately, her forays away from the safe well traveled tourist sites have sometimes gotten her and her little ducklings into trouble. Her latest out of the way adventure to a 400-year-old bakery results in one of her clients getting attacked by gluten. It is the last straw for Angela’s boss and he fires her. On her way home she meets a visiting business executive, Oliver, played by Sam Page, who is lost. She gets him to his business meeting successfully despite taking the scenic route, to his impatience. Oliver wants the retiring Luigi, played by Franco Nero, as handsome and charismatic as ever, to sell his high end family ceramics company to his firm. Oliver is all business, all the time. He is all about the bottom line, ignoring the niceties, and cutting right to the chase, which might be okay in some countries, but not in Italy, as Angela tries to tell him. As it happens, Luigi is very rich and doesn’t care how much money he gets for his Christmas ornament and other ceramics manufacturing company as long as its heart, soul, and artistic culture is preserved and nourished. There is lot of talk about “heart” and “soul” in this one. When Angela steps in and saves his bacon with Luigi who was very put off by Oliver’s initial approach, she adds life coach to her tour guide duties. She escorts the culture-shocked American around “the real” Rome showing him its heart and soul while lecturing him to death. There is nothing that Angela does not know about anything Roman. This was a very educational Hallmark. Oliver is won over and encourages her to start her own kind of tour guide company, specializing in tours that are much more than just the top ten tourist must-sees and selfie sites in the Eternal City. Meanwhile, Oliver is fending off his boss’s constant nagging about-When he is going to close the deal? What’s taking so long? Why do you look so relaxed and happy? And what does kneading bread with Lacey Chabert have to do with Luigi’s manufacturing plant? God, she was annoying. And the more she talked, the more I was afraid that Oliver actually would convince Luigi to sell his wonderful company to them as they were the exact opposite of everything that Luigi wanted from its future owner.

There were some really good moments in this one besides the scenery.

Angela refusing her former boss’s pleas to come back to work for him was one high point. Despite the inconvenience, seems Angela was very popular with his clients and frequently mentioned by name in his Trip Advisor reviews. His alarm when she tells him she is starting her own company and is on her way to line up some investors (arranged by Oliver) was very satisfying. A real “Hee-Hee-Hee” moment. I really liked that Oliver really bought into and supported Angela’s business aspirations.

Her pitch to her future investors was well done and the outcome was well managed, with just enough suspense to contribute to the overall effect.

I even liked that big conflict at the end which was well-founded and not silly or cooked up. At a celebratory dinner, Angela and Oliver agree to give their relationship a go despite living in different countries. Oliver tells her he will stay in Rome through New Year’s which signals that he has found balance between work and his personal life. Also, he has refused to take his boss’s calls! Angela is so encouraged that when she rings again, Angela encourages him to talk to her. He does, but he comes back to the table with news that he has been promoted to vice president (good news) but he must leave for New York immediately after all (bad).  In an instant, Angela sees the sad reality of their future in front of her versus the dream of making a go of it with the back-sliding Oliver. She calls the whole thing off and is direct, strong, and articulate. It was a great scene, and I was cheering her on all the way. Sam Page perfectly conveyed Oliver’s confusion and heartbreak.

There was a lot to resolve to achieve a satisfactory ending: The romance, Angela’s business venture, Oliver’s work/life balance, and, importantly for me, the future of Luigi’s beautiful little company in the hands of Oliver’s cutthroat employer. All were hanging by a thread. At one point Angela is even contemplating moving back to Seattle, of all places! Sure enough, Hallmark checked them all off and did so right in front of St. Peter’s Basilica during a Christmas concert. Well played.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10.

Chateau Christmas

/ Rebekahrox / 5 Comments
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“In the willingess to fail, the extraordinary will often appear.”

**Spoilers**

I caught this 2020 Countdown to Christmas movie last night. I had only seen part of it back when it first came out, but it caught my interest because I always like Luke McFarlane and I was happy to see Merritt Patterson again. She has been absent from Hallmark for the last four years. Although she was not the most talented Hallmark actress, she is very pretty and has a sweet and gentle vibe that I kind of like. And Luke has the same type of kind and sunny quality when he is not being an excellent comedic actor.

Margot Hammond (great name!) is a world renowned pianist who is getting a little burned out from the travel, the constant pressure to not disappoint, and fear of not living up to her reputation. She got a rare bad review from a highly respected critic who credited her technical expertise but called her out on her lack of musicality and passion in her playing. It really stung because she knows it is the truth. When an upcoming concert is canceled due to the venue’s roof falling in and almost killing her, she decides to join her family for their traditional Christmas vacation at the Chateau Neuhaus, a ski lodge in Colorado. She is looking forward to licking her wounds in the bosom of her nice, supportive, and charming family.

While tinkling the ivories in the hotel lobby she is approached by her ex-boyfriend and musical partner, Jackson (lovely Luke Mcfarlane). They are surprised but happy to meet up again after so many years even though they parted badly.  8 years ago they were in a quartet together and were in love. But when Margot was offered the opportunity of a lifetime in New York, she did not hesitate to follow her dream of being a concert pianist, unfortunately leaving the group in the lurch. Jackson, who was the cellist, stayed in Colorado and became a music professor who is currently up for the department chair. The PR guy for the lodge, Adam, charmingly played by Jesse Hutch, is another old college buddy and he is in a pickle. The Chateau hosts a highly anticipated and sold out Christmas concert but all of the performers have had to drop out for one reason or another.  Jackson has agreed to replace the director and find replacement musical acts. When the headliner also drops out, he prevails on Margot to take her place. Refreshingly, although Margot feels a teeny tiny bit guilty about the way they broke up, and Jackson was very hurt, there is no bitterness or childish sulking between the two, as is usual in these things. Another example. Margot waffles a bit, but agrees and they take up where they left off, but as friends. They both are wary of acting on their still active romantic feelings for each other because their lives are so different and neither wants to get hurt.

Together they whip the concert into shape (Adam is hopeless), focusing on securing a famous quartet who have been broken up for 20 years and have been incommunicado with each other. Their break up mirrors Margo and Jackson’s in that two of the quartet were in love but Sarah wanted to settle down and start a family and Sam wanted to focus on his career and touring. He confides that he has regretted it ever since. The re-uniting of the surviving members of the Lafayette Quartet and the re igniting of the romance between the now divorced Sarah and curmudgeonly Sam was sweet and engaging.

Now if all romances were as trouble free as this one, it would get pretty boring. But it was nice for a change to have the leads behave like mature adults and professionals. Even when Margot learns the critic that caused her so much grief would be reviewing the concert and that Jackson didn’t tell her right away, it was the set up for the notorious big misunderstanding and temporary breakup with 15 minutes to go. But they communicate, she listens, and she understands his side of the story. My jaw dropped.

Thanks to the advice of the older couple who are given a second chance at love, Jackson and Margot resolve that they too can marry and have a family without compromising her stellar career. Margot overcomes her fears, rediscovers her passion for her music, and gets a stellar review from the critic, who turns out to be really smart and nice. The concert goes off without a hitch and even better than originally planned. Jackson gets the chairmanship of the music department, and of course Jackson and Margot live happily, kindly, and harmoniously ever after.

This was a old school Hallmark but without many of the usual tropes and cliches. The romance is definitely a focus, but not the main focus. More time is taken by the challenges of putting on the last minute concert, Margot finding her musical mojo again, and the secondary romance of the older couple.

Rating: 7 out of 10.