Movies, etc.

A Costa Rican Wedding

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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.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

My Dreams of You

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What Dreams May Come

This was nicely different from the usual! Any time they leave behind the usual playbook which I won’t repeat here and venture into little visited territory it’s always welcome. And this one, I think, was actually unknown territory not just little visited. It was a fantasy, but not the usual time travel, magic snow globes, or earthly angels and such reaching out from beyond the grave.

Grace is an aspiring but so far unsuccessful writer who has been having some strange dreams lately. For 8 nights in a row, she has been dreaming about a handsome and nice man named Michael. In fact she has kind of fallen for this dream-man. When she finds out what his last name is during one dream, she looks  him up on line and finds out he is a real person. He is a singer who is touring around and is visiting Grand Rapids Michigan, less than an hour away from her hometown of Kalamazoo. As a former Michigander, I loved that central Michigan was featured for once instead of it’s more picturesque northern and northwestern coast. Or Detroit. Anyway, Grace drives to see his act and introduces herself. To her surprise, he does not know who she is, but when they coincidentally meet up again in a nearby diner, they make a connection and start to fall in love. So what is going on here?

Cut to Dream Central, where we humans have the stages set for the dreams we have when we fall asleep. We meet Alura, a new hire, and her mentor Harvey.  The workers there in Dream Central are supernatural non-humans who have never lived on earth. So not ghosts or angels. It is kept very vague but makes interesting food for thought. Alura is Grace’s “Dream Associate” and she has really screwed up. Every human has all of their memories stored on VHS tapes ( a quirky detail-Yay) from babyhood to the present. And these tapes, provide the fodder for our “Dream Weavers” to set the foundations for our dreams. Nothing beyond the dreamer’s actual experiences must be included in the framework. But somehow, Alura, played by a very cute Cecilia Lee, has mixed the tapes of Grace’s memories up  with Michael’s. So Grace has been having dreams based on wisps of Michael’s memories and that is how he has invaded her consciousness. We learn that Michael never remembers his dreams so that is why he does not remember Grace when they meet for reals. It was very bad that Grace and Michael’s tapes were mixed up, but when Grace, halfway in love with dream Michael actually finds him in real life, it is a code red situation. Destiny has been altered because of a mistake and the life trajectories of not only Michael and Grace but of untold thousands of others have taken a turn. Disaster and Doom!

Harvey and a very reluctant Alura, who is touched by their romance, must find them and take the ill begotten memories of each away. While Grace and Michael go on a train trip, fall in love, and inspire each other as writers, we also follow Harvey and Post-it Note and pie-loving Alura’s journey on this strange planet earth. To complicate matters, Since Grace’s memories of Michael are now real life ones, they cannot erase her memories of Michael without her permission. And the chances of them meeting again naturally instead of by way of dooming the universe are almost impossible since they live 2000 miles from each other. So it’s looking pretty bad for true love and a happy ending.

The romance in this one was good with touching and amusing moments and good chemistry between the two actors, both new to Hallmark. I liked them both and that Skyler Samuels is a dead ringer for Hallmark linchpin Cindy Busby, didn’t hurt her in my eyes. The plot was well conceived and imaginative.  No it didn’t always make sense or follow the rules of logic, but I just wanted to go with the flow and not analyze matters too closely. That says something, I guess. I even found myself tolerating Hallmark’s often used “follow your dreams no matter what even though doing so is at the expense of others” message. It was very good, not best of the best, but very good. The happy ending was contrived and out of left field. Plus it was pretty cheesy, even for a Hallmark.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10.

Junebug

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Inner Childish

I thought this one had some promise. Autumn Reeser has consistently starred in some of the better Hallmarks. Her presence alone insures a certain level of credibility. Not a huge fan of Aaron O’Connell but he was well cast and perfect in Made for Each Other. The plot had a fantasy element that I usually welcome. Juniper (Reeser) is visited by her 8-year-old self that only she can see. “Junebug” has come out of her childhood “wish box” to help her almost 40-year-old (birthday imminent) self out of a rut professionally and personally. But ultimately it was a big disappointment, I’m very sorry to say.

Juniper dreamed of being a writer as a child. One compromise after another led her off that path but she is a big success as a well-respected editor for a boutique publisher of YA and children’s books. Now this seems like a pretty cool career to me, but what do I know? Juniper is vaguely dissatisfied and bored by her job. And also her stable predictable boyfriend. When Junebug appears she calls Juniper out on her boring wardrobe, her boring duties at work, and her boring boyfriend whose idea of a hot date is a home-cooked pasta dinner every Wednesday night. Again sounds nice to me, but when Juniper asks that he bring any other pasta other than their traditional penne, and he shows up with penne anyway, she breaks up her 3-year relationship with him. At work, her boss, Paula, has tasked the team with finding fresh new illustrators for their children’s line. Juniper, guided by Junebug,  finds one in a mysterious and hot muralist, Alex Ripley (O’Connell). Research reveals that he is an icon of the art world who shot straight to the top after his first show. But he disappeared when his second show was savaged by critics. Now he travels from city to city doing unsigned murals. Red flag. Inspired by Junebug, Juniper has decided to get back to her writing. After her meet cute with Alex (she destroys the mural he is working on and he is very nice about it) they decide to work together on a children’s book.

From then on the movie is all about Alex and Juniper talking about doing the book and dealing with Juniper’s writer’s block. They go on a road trip, eat raspberry swirl ice cream (a lot), walk on the beach, shop for clothes, flirt, and kiss chastely. (Very chastely considering they are two attractive single 40-year-olds who might be in love.) Not exactly compelling viewing. No, not a lot of excitement, but there was quite a bit of comedic potential in a 40-year-old sophisticate being followed around by her interfering 8-year-old self that only she can see. But nada. Other than a few quizzical looks and an occasional “Are you all right?” when Juniper is apparently having conversations with herself, it’s just wasted. It’s all just Juniper and Junebug talking boringly mostly by themselves.

The big crisis is when Alex and Juniper’s book is rejected by her boss as being too much of a risk for the company. But why? It made zero sense, unless her boss was just being nice and the book was really awful. She points out that Alex’s muralistic illustrations were “on too large a scale” for a kid’s book, which makes sense and seems like a fair criticism. I guess, because we never actually get to see his work.  But Alex is highly insulted and flounces off petulantly. “This is not why I make my work-To have someone tell me what market it’s right for!” Boo-de-hoo-hoo. Grow. Up. Juniper quits her job without notice the next day. “Is this because I passed on your project? No it really isn’t, Paula” Right. Juniper wins Alex back by hoisting a boombox in the air a la one of my favorite movies, Say Anything. Lots of tributes to that movie in this one. For the happy ending, Alex and Juniper, together for her birthday, open a box of their newly published (by another publisher or self-published-we never know) book. The cover is really bad. Maybe Paula was right.

I won’t be watching this one again, but I might give Say Anything another go. Now that’s a good movie with a lot of heart.

Rating: 5 out of 10.

P.S. I was just reminded by a user review on IMDb that there is a 25 year old movie that is very similar to this one, only done right, with real drama and bite. Its called If You Believe, and I highly recommend it. I thought there was something familiar about this.

An Ice Palace Romance

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The Skating Continues

This premiered in December 2023 on Hallmark’s Streaming Channel. Last night was its network premiere. I didn’t hold that against it because this month’s Rescuing Christmas which had the same kind of roll out was one of last year’s best Christmas movies in my opinion.

I am not going to summarize the plot of this one except to say City Girl, Small Town, Single Father, Old building Saved. The rest of the movie only piles on the tired cliches and tent pole scenes one right after another as the 80 odd minutes tick by. Some of this is to be expected and actually OK for those to who only look at Hallmarks to provide comfort, reliability, and escape from reality. I’m not one of those and there is too much else wrong with this one. Here’s 5 things.

Lori, the city girl, was an Olympic hopeful ice-skater who fell during the trials and “never skated again”. So. No dedication, no courage, no commitment. No nothing. Including sympathy from me.  Not the stuff that Olympic champions are made of and it was probably for the best for all concerned. So the lead girl did not make a good first impression and did nothing to endear her to me later.

The actress was stiff and awkward in this role. Though young and pretty, her makeup was slathered on, even in a scene where she was awakened in bed by a morning phone call. I really thought we were starting to get past that. Plus, in the context of the phone call the makeup situation actually undermined the script. I won’t go into it. But, my God, the lip liner.

Her obligatory  work colleague and confidante embodied every stereotype of the flamboyant gay male possible. He was exhausting.

The lead guy, Mark, who actually is likably played by reliable Hallmark workhorse, Marcus Rosner, is trying to save his skating rink from an evil (and he actually is) corporate developer. He keeps nattering on about how it is the “heart and soul” of the community, how it is all “for the children”, and trying to fundraise to make the improvements necessary to keep his lease. This is not a charity or publicly funded community (one of his favorite words) project. This is his for-profit business and he lives in a huge expensive house.  So-o-o-o-o-o. What is wrong with this picture? A little self-serving maybe?

Lori goes through the whole movie falling for Mark, supporting Marc’s efforts with his rink, accepting gifts from him, and listening sympathetically. She is noticeably disgusted by the the evil developer who is also trying to date her. She befriends Mark’s daughter and coaches her for the skating tournament. After she conquered her little skating aversion, she skates at the Ice Palace incessantly. But when her article comes out, it was not favorable to Mark’s cause! And it’s not because her intimidating female boss edited it behind her back either. It is totally what she wrote. And she doesn’t even warn Mark or have any kind of conversation with him that her article will not be backing him 100%. He is blindsided and humiliated by the smarmy developer who can’t resist taunting him. It is a total stab in the back. The fact that her article is right is beside the point. It was a shocker, but in a WTF way, not in a good way.

I could go on and on (trust me) but I’ll stop there because I don’t want to be tedious about it. I will just assure you that the bad guy is defeated, the ice rink is saved, the development the town needs for rejuvenation happens, and Lori abandons her city career for small town life, ice-skating, love, and motherhood. Didn’t want you to worry. There were some bright spots. Shannon McDonough as Jen, Lori’s local camera operator was good and her little romance with a nerdy architect could have used a lot more attention. And I am always glad to see Mary Long who played the Mayor. And her necklace in one scene was quite eye catching. But I guess that’s a Canadian thing and it’s not really a necklace per se.

Every so often, Hallmark will throw one of these lazy efforts up on the screen.

Rating: 4 out of 10.

A Very Vermont Christmas

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Hoppy Christmas!

As is often the case when a Hallmark has no one in the cast I am a big fan of, and the plot seems the usual standard fare, I did not hold out much hope for this one. But I sucked it up and devoted 2 hours to it last night. Although it did not not exceed my expectations, it had a few aspects that rescued it from utter mediocrity. First, I liked the craft beer angle. Wine has been overdone (in the movies) as has confections. They leaned into the process pretty well, and it added some interest.  Second, the main antagonist provided some tension and suspense. He was a curious and layered character. Ultimately he was a bad guy who behaved atrociously, but who was, at times, rather sad and pitiable. It also managed to avoid some bad behaviors that plague Hallmark couples. Specifically, conducting the romance under a cloud of lies and obfuscation. Of course, one of them is accused of lying, but it he wasn’t. Lies and romance are hard to separate in any fiction, not just Hallmark.

Katie Leclerc plays Joy, a former champion skier, who is trying to keep her family’s small craft brewery and bar from being absorbed by the corporate meanies trying to buy them out. Her main competitor, Frosty’s, I think, is owned by her former ex-boyfriend. He is all about the bottom line and only sells mass market national brands. So a clear definition between Good and Evil according to Hallmark. The ex seems to be working against Joy constantly while trying to get back together with her. It’s confusing. Our Hero, Zac, is a lover and connoisseur of craft beers but is a representative of one of these national brands and is there in Vermont on some kind of business related to Frosty’s. He is also meeting his formerly estranged father there later to cement their new found bond by going skiing. Zac is a terrible skier and he gets Joy to give him lessons. So between the Craft Beer and the skiing, the romance happens. Also a contest happens for the best craft beer, the winner of which will receive a national distribution deal from Zac’s beer company.  When Joy’s recipe for the beer she is entering in the contest is stolen, she blows up her romance with Zac by accusing him of the espionage, completely forgetting that she left her weasel of an ex and long-time adversary who has a history of bad behavior alone with the recipe. Needless, and I do mean needless, to say, Joy prevails with Zac’s help, and skip skip skip, her brewery/pub is saved and Zac decides to stay in Vermont.

I like Katie LeClerc all right. She gets the job done and looks younger than her years. And, bonus, her forehead wrinkles when called for.  John Forrest,  who played her ex-boyfriend really brought the creep factor, which was compounded by the fact that he was supposed to be her same age, but looked a lot older than even the 6 years that separate the two actors. Funnily enough, Ryan McPartlin, who looked very age appropriate for Katie, is actually 5 years older than John Forrest. Somehow, it all worked. This is one of those Hallmarks which telegraphs everything that happens well in advance but that chugs along to the end without anything to really love or hate.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10.

Rescuing Christmas

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Cute as the Dickens

This was just as delightful as I remember it being when I saw it last December on the Hallmark Now channel (free trial subscription). I remember thinking that it was one of the best Christmas movies of the season and wondered why it wasn’t on their network Countdown to Christmas 2023. I didn’t review it then because of that and because there are just so many reviews one can do in a week at the busiest time of the year. So it was no hardship to look at it again last night.

Erin (Rachel Leigh Cook) is somewhat of a Christmas scrooge. She only appreciates Christmas for the joy it gives others, particularly her own niece and nephew. She is picked at random for “Operation: Wish” conceived by two of Santa’s elves, Chuck and Debbie, to help humankind rediscover its Christmas spirit which has been lost in the wake of such crimes against humanity like social media and macaroni and cheese ice cream. She is driven to distraction by the two elves incessant emails to claim her last wish (the first two were for her Mom’s Christmas cookies and her old boyfriend to to come back and give her the credit she deserves for his new found success (long and entertaining story: She ends up throwing the asshole out of the house). Finally in frustration and a little scared because her two previous wishes came true by coincidence, she wishes for Christmas to disappear. When it does, she soon realizes her mistake and spends the rest of the movie trying to bring Christmas back with the help of the love interest, Sam, played by Sam Page. He did not endear himself to Erin at first when he showed up for their blind date in Reindeer Antlers. Of course now that Erin has wished that there is no such thing as Christmas and never was, his love for the holiday is not an issue. But yet, despite his initial incredulity over what she is blathering on about, he helps and supports her because he really really likes her. We know it’s true love when she calls him to bail her out of jail.  It was sweet and romantic.

Erin’s attempts to explain Christmas and how to celebrate it to everyone are very funny and thought provoking. A tree in the house? Pantyhose full of rocks? And who was this Mary Krismas again? She sets about trying to recreate it for her loved ones, Sam, and then the whole town. It is gold mine of visual humor. Red and Green aren’t a thing now that Christmas never was, so Erin has to make due with pink and chartreuse. When she sends her parents out to purchase the usual Christmas paraphernalia, they come back with leftover Halloween decorations,  pink feather boas, Hawaiian Leis, tennis balls, and beach balls (“You said to get ornaments like brightly colored balls!”). Is christmas even possible without twinkle lights? Will a fox do for a yard ornament? Because reindeer? Really?

Everyone who had a part in this movie was wonderful, but I particularly loved the quirky performances of Patrick O’Brien and  Bailey Stender who played Chuck and Debbie, the two elves responsible for the whole fustercluck who were eager to help Erin but had to do so with only the most discreet use of Christmas Magic.  The writers made the decision to keep religion and spirituality out of this movie entirely. And I see why they did that. But to me, it brought this one down just a bit. I would have appreciated even a cursory nod to the original reason for Christmas, since this was what the movie was kind of about. It was kind of an elephant in the room. Despite that, with Santa’s help, all ends happily with Erin finally realizing she loved Christmas for the joy it gave her, not just her loved ones, and satisfactorily paired up with Sam. (“Is romance always part of Christmas?”, he asked. “Of course, whole channels were devoted to it.”) In the end, even Chuck and Debbie got their wish and no longer had to deal with humans again.

Rating: 9.5 out of 10.

Christmas by Design

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I wouldn’t Wear those Pajamas to Walmart, Let Alone to Bed.

So far, Rebecca Dalton seems to have been cast as characters that have really rubbed me the wrong way. This one was no exception. She plays a snotty little pill in this movie who is not rehabilitated until the last 15 minutes or so. She is mean and rude to her newish stepfather, dismissive of her nice family, and looks down on the townspeople in her small town because she is all so important and cool as a NEW YORK CITY semi-successful fashion designer. She also hurts the guy who has been so nice and helpful to her by disparaging him to her friend when she doesn’t know he is listening.

And I haven’t been too fond of her leading man either. He was actually pretty good in this one except for some reason, they have injected the info that he is the hometown hunk who is the object of desire of all of the cute single women in town. But at least he doesn’t play a prince this time. In looks and stature he’s kind on the wispy side compared to the usual Hallmark leading man. As kind of a humble sad widower seeking peace and healing in his new town, he was fine. He also comes across as quick witted and intelligent.

I will admit that because she was such an unlikable character in the beginning it made her repentance and rehabilitation that much more satisfying. That’s all I came to say except that I wish they would use Joanna Douglas more often. I really like her. And the pajamas designed for the contest were spectacularly ugly.

Rating: 5 out of 10.

October 29, 2023

Falling Like Snowflakes

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Flakey

It’s Christmas in July time at Hallmark only in June. It was nice to get back to a Christmas story in the summertime. All that cold weather and snow when it’ so hot outside! And in this one, the snow, or at least the flakes, were (was?) the starring attraction, not just white background.

Teagan is a photographer who specializes in taking pictures of snowflakes. She also  works closely with the community center as a photography teacher. Her best friend runs an Art Gallery and Teagan’s snowflakes are center stage. There are 35 main types of snowflakes and she has  photos of 34 of them. She has been on the hunt for the last one to complete her collection for 3 years, since her Mom died. If she finds it by Christmas Eve, a collector will not only buy all 35 of the pictures, but donate enough to the community center to fix everything that ails it. Finding the rare and elusive 12 sided stellar dendrite will be like finding a needle in a haystack but if the needle kept melting!

Anyway, and you won’t believe this, One of Teagan’s star students, Julie, is the daughter of Teagan’s former high school honey, Noah,  and he is a not-too-sad widower. Now that his wife is dead, he has returned to his old hometown after giving up his former career as a climate scientist (weatherman) to become the world’s worst professional snow plow driver. Not sure why he did that since since the usual loving grandparents or other hometown family who could mother his little girl were noticeably absent. The two prospective love interests meet, sparks fly, etc. Being a snow plow driver,  Noah volunteers to take Teagan to a gathering severe snow storm on a mountain to hunt for the snowflake that will complete her collection and save the community center. Driving around, looking at the scenery, and staying at an Inn, they get to know each other. Excitement occurs when Noah runs into some black ice and crashes his snow plow into a snowbank. Now you would think that wouldn’t be a problem for a snow plow, but, like I said, he is the world’s worst. He failed to stock the humongous cargo box with the usual snow fighting tools such as salt, sand, and shovels to get him out of trouble.

Empty

Also no chains on the tires. But adorned with bows and wreaths aplenty! Meanwhile, back in Willow Creek a rival photographer is also on the hunt for the rare crystal. She looks like Sarah Silverman. Sarah starts cosying up to Julie trying to learn Teagan’s secrets for photographing snowflakes which are easily found on Google. She is so hopeless and incompetent that she ends up being comic relief rather than a source of tension and suspense. Nevertheless, she is taken dead seriously as a legitimate threat throughout the movie.

Back on the mountain, Teagan and Noah are somehow rescued. They continue chasing the elusive snow storm, but when they find it Teagan has barely gotten her camera out of the bag before she almost gets lost and is almost flattened by a falling tree branch. Thoroughly cowed, they give up on the snowflake and return to safety but without Teagan’s camera which she forgot and left on the mountain in the snow (IKR?). Just to set your mind at rest, the next day, Noah goes back to get it and somehow the camera snuck back into it’s insulated camera case which saved all of the pictures. It turns out she captured a shot of the rare flake (perfectly centered!) without even knowing it,  the community center is saved, and Julie looks like she is going to get a new mom.

I just touched on some of the stuff in this movie that didn’t make sense. Good ole reliable Marcus Rosner is OK, but for some reason I am not a fan of Rebecca Dalton who played Teagan. I’ve disliked most of the movies she has starred in and my dislike has mostly been  due to the obnoxious characters she has played. This one did not win me over.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10.

Two Scoops of Italy

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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.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

A Greek Recipe for Romance

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She Can Pronounce “Spanakopita” but not “Gyro?”

 This was a very well done movie! It combined what is often so good about the travelogue-type Hallmarks with a good story and likable characters. The travelogue part and local culture part was smoothly incorporated into the story. It didn’t take place on one of the touristy islands so we are spared the usual famous ruins. It had affecting family conflict, a fair amount of tension and suspense, and a believable love story. Best of all, the characters not only did not act like idiots, but were sensible, capable, and smart. The two leads were attractive with the added bonus of being fresh faces.

Abby is fired from her job in New York as an Assistant Manager of a prestigious hotel. Not sure why, since she is demonstrably very capable at it. She goes up in the elevator expecting to be deservedly promoted and comes down fired. Weird. She takes the opportunity to visit her mother who moved to Greece a few years prior. Her mother is a real estate agent with a pink office building which just doesn’t fly in Greece where everything is white and blue. She is also dating a handsome Greek man. Abby, being the good manager she is, soon puts a stop to the pink, revises her mom’s website, and her real estate business starts to take off. Thanks to her Mom’s Greek assistant, she also partners up with Theo, who is a wonderful Cordon Bleu trained chef who wants to open his own restaurant but knows nothing about business or customer service.  Helping Theo will give her resume a much needed dose of restaurant experience and Abby is nothing if not a go-getter.

Theo at first comes off like an entitled jerk but as the movie goes on his character softens and he comes across as rather sweet and shy.  The two work together to outfit the restaurant, work on a menu, tackle zoning problems, and get the place up to snuff so it will pass inspection. They butt heads over some things, but refreshingly, they compromise and keep moving forward. To keep things interesting, unbeknownst to Abby, Theo is a billionaire scion of a powerful shipping family who wants to make it on his own. He goes by his down-to-earth late mother’s name and it’s a big secret. The ongoing conflict is with his powerful father who, of course, like all powerful Hallmark fathers, wants his son to join the family firm. Definitely not follow his own different drummer by opening some rinky-dink cafe.

While we tour around Greece, make olive oil, and eat delicious Greek food there is a specter of vague menace and disaster lurking around the corner. His Dad has sent his minion (or maybe it’s his other son) Dmitri,  to get Theo back to Athens. Although not stated, there is a distinct threat of “Or Else”. Dmitri is as scary as he is attractive. We suspect that he might be responsible for the chain of difficulties Theo and Abby have to contend with business-wise. Whether that is actually the case is left up in the air. Also adding to the suspense is how the big secret of his true identity will go over with Abby. When she inevitably finds out, she does not freak out but is level headed about it. In fact, she uses  his renowned name on her resume to snag an even better job than the one she didn’t get a promotion to!

What I liked about this one was that the roadblocks to Abby and Theo’s relationship and the challenges they run into opening the restaurant are resolved with common sense, hard work, and effective communication. I thought “Well good for her!” or “Good for him!” more than once. That is more unusual than it should be in a Hallmark movie. The end is predictable, of course. But when Theo’s powerful father shows up at the restaurant and concedes his formerly intractable position on Theo’s future, I almost choked up a bit. Nice closure at the end as well.

Rating: 8 out of 10.