Colleen Wheeler

Field Day

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“As soon as you think you’ve got it all figured out, Bam! A wall of corn.”

~~Musings in the Corn Maze~~

Very Nice. Very Very Nice. Field Day is another Hallmark plot that ventures off the usual beaten track of go to small town add festival and old boyfriend and save some tired old institution. Yes, it’s another Hallmark that mixes it up a bit. This happily seems to be becoming a trend. Rachel Boston, who has been getting a lot of Hallmark work these days, plays Jen, a widowed mother of a teenager who moves back home closer to her and her late husband’s parents for support. Needless to say, she is still nursing her grief and has closed herself off from truly moving forward in her life, especially her love life.  OK, OK, so far it does sound like business as usual. And there is a festival. But trust me.

Jen is sharp, funny, and relatable. Driving her daughter to school in her pajama bottoms, “because no one will see. I’m not getting out of the car”, the inevitable happens and she winds up out of the car, attending a PTO meeting, and roped into volunteering for the dreaded Field Day fundraising event with two other moms we have been introduced to.  Marissa is a confident and canny Lawyer Mom who has put her family on the back burner in favor of her career. Kelly is an annoying Social Media Mom with over 10,000 followers devoted to maintaining her influencer image as the perfect wife and mother. Together they form an unlikely trio intent on making the infamous field day a success, (despite the mean-girl PTO president). In the process, they become firm friends and regain the balance in each of their lives. It doesn’t start off well. Kelly and Marisa have been on the outs because Kelly once publicly pointed to Marissa as an example of how working mothers neglect their kids. And now, to compound the situation, she just posted a picture of newcomer Jen’s pajama bottoms as #3 of 5 things not to do at a PTO meeting. Kelly sounds like a real stinker, but thanks to good writing and acting, we like her anyway. After many bonding adventures and the highs and lows of putting on field day, Marissa regains her work/life balance and Kelly realizes she doesn’t need her phony perfect image and becomes her real self. Jen, who is the main focus of the story, starts to become “unstuck” and (bonus!) finds love with the school’s athletic coach played by a well-cast Benjamin Ayers. Because he has some issues to overcome as well, their romance doesn’t follow the usual predictable arc and is interesting and engaging.

Field Day is fast-paced, funny, touching, and wise. I teared up at one point and felt like cheering at another. The characters are well drawn and engaging even down to the long-suffering but loving and supportive husbands of Marissa and Kelly. If these guys love their challenging wives who have gone a bit off track, they must be worth rooting for. The humor is witty and snarky with a few doses of slapstick.  At one point, Marissa makes fun of baking montages so beloved by Hallmark scripters. The three women have an easy and natural rapport and play off of each other very entertainingly. Well-written and well-acted. It’s a lot of fun. Yay, Hallmark.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10.

Notes of Autumn

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Trading Places

This is a “trading places” romance wherein two long-distance friends exchange homes for a week or so to figure things out regarding their professional lives.  Ever smiley Ashley Williams plays Ellie, a former professional pianist, who just got fired from her event planner job because she kept getting distracted by pianos. She gave up her true vocation because, she says, she likes to eat, have a roof over her head, and wear clothes. But it’s really because her confidence was shattered by a mean conductor. One of her good friends in the hotel she worked at is Matt, the chef, who is using her apartment kitchen to create new recipes for a restaurant he hopes to open soon. The ever charming and adorable Luke McFarlane plays Leo, a romance writer with the curse of all Hallmark characters who write for a living: the dread Writer’s Block. His neighbor is Sam who is trying to whip a string quartet into shape for a charity event called a Piano Ball even though he is not a musician. Friends Leo and Ellie change places a la The Holiday Or Hallmark’s own Trading Christmas or last year’s Sister Swap movies. Yes, it’s been done before. And disappointingly a lot better in two of the cases.

To make a long story short, Ellie falls for Sam while getting her music mojo back, and Leo falls for Matt who inspires him to write something new as he is tired of writing his very popular series of historical romances. The fictional characters of Isabelle and Jack, amusingly played by Pascale Hutton and Kavan Smith,(who play a couple in Hallmark’s super popular series, When Calls the Heart) keep intruding in Leo’s real-life struggles writing on his computer. I kept getting distracted by Ashley’s smile and Marcus Rosner’s dimples, imagining what their children might look like. Can we make that happen?

Besides the cute gimmick of Pascale and Kavan’s occasional appearances, the writing was average but the actors made the most of their lines. All of them were likable and funny, although Ashley’s struggles made no sense whatsoever. The gay romance was well done and sweet. Their sexual preference was pretty much in deep cover. Even Leo was surprised Matt was gay even after they had spent a good bit of time together. Guess his writer’s block also broke his Gaydar. At the end though we get some pretty loving looks and a couple of kisses. They all end up in Pinewood, Leo’s and Sam’s picturesque Canadian hometown, the city where Ellie and Matt lived abandoned in true Hallmark fashion. The love lives and professional lives are destined for success.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

The Wedding Contract

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Signing on the Dotted Line

I have always liked Becca Tobin in the movies I have seen her in and this was no exception. And I have really really liked Jake Epstein. He is good-looking, but with a nice normal guy-type vibe as well. They star together in this low-key Jewish-themed romance. Ms. Tobin has never looked lovelier. This one is a little different as the couple has a meet-cute, time goes by, Jake meets Rebecca’s close-knit family, and they are engaged to be married in the first 18 minutes. Rebecca teaches art, and we have a montage of pencil drawings of the couple having fun and such like to prove to the audience they have spent the necessary time together and they are a good match. And… it’s time to plan the wedding and bring home Jake’s single Mom ( I’m redecorating a Castle in Romania) from her world travels.

Of course, the mothers are…challenging. They have completely opposite tastes and lives. One likes lots of pizzazz and one favors understated sophistication. But their antics are mostly held in check. The conflict is limited to dirty looks and extreme civility. Plus, this bride actually has a backbone. There is also the matter of religious differences. Although they are both Jewish, Rebecca is fairly devout and holds to all the traditional customs and ceremonies. Adam on the other hand is Jewish in name only. His now-divorced mother married a gentile after his father died, and the pair lost touch with that side of things. There are a number of scenes of Adam getting immersed and educated in his heritage and he does it to make Rebecca happy. This involves meetings with a Rabbi, who looks more like an agent for the Mossad and is terrifying. The second and far more serious source of conflict is Adam’s career. After they are engaged and planning the wedding, Adam gets a big promotion to partner but it means he and Rebecca will have to move to Los Angeles. Rebecca is very close to her family and the after-school program she created and runs in Chicago. She is sad but rightly agrees with good grace that move is what they must do. Bonus Perk: He will be making twice as much money! So yes. Good decision. So far so good. They love each other and are willing to put the other first and work things out together. However,  after navigating their share of stormy waters the boat starts to flounder when Adam has to go to L.A. to handle an emergency just a few days before the wedding, and is late getting back in time for the rehearsal. Rebecca, already stressed and questioning Adam’s priorities walks out. I thought that was a little extreme.

All is (miraculously) resolved of course, with some thanks to the sage guidance of the two Moms. The actors were excellent. Becca Tobin managed to convey teacher-like qualities outside of the classroom without coming across as overly high-handed. Jake Epstein conveyed his character’s high-strung tendencies without making him seem like a ditz.  Jake’s mother, played by Laura Soltis had a lovely and touching scene near the end which softened her hard sophisticate facade. Oh! and good ol’ Peter Benson was in this. This was a low-key story that did include some drama and tension but didn’t turn into a silly circus. It was very pleasant.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

Just My Type

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An Extra Star for Bethany Joy Lenz and the Lack of a “Frolic” Scene

This one follows the Hallmark template almost perfectly. All of the plot points and characters are straight off the mix-and-match stock list and hardly one is left out. The only thing it didn’t have was a cutesy snowball fight, snow angel or snowman session, baking flour fight, food fight, splashing or dunking in the water, etc., etc., etc. Of course, I did doze off for a minute or two so I may have missed the frolic scene. Bethany Joy did manage to snag herself with a fishing hook, but that was actually kind of amusing. So why a 6? That’s my grade for Ho-hum but not blatantly insulting or cringe-worthy. Lenz’s comic timing and likable portrayal bumped it up at least one star. Her love interest was a non-entity, and the romance was unbelievable and practically non-existent. I hope she goes back to Portland.

I suspect I would bump this up a star or 2 if I re-watched it, but as it stands now…

Rating: 6 out of 10.

April 1, 2020

The 27 Hour Day

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Chill!

**spoilers**

This was a very calm Hallmark with the usual shenanigans showing up only briefly. A highly successful A-type personality who is an efficiency expert has the rug yanked out from under her when she is not invited on a speaking tour with an Oprah Winfrey-like self-help guru. “Oprah” tells her that her life is efficient but meaningless. Lauren, played by Hallmark fave, Autumn Reeser, is annoying but thanks to Autumn’s charm and acting talent, not intolerably so. She goes on a prescribed retreat in Montana where she learns to calm down and sit still for a minute. She and the son of the family who owns the retreat share an attraction and become friendly. And that’s about it. He is having some easily solved financial problems and is sort of starting to regret his decision to give up veterinary school. There is a honey fest, a super-cute pig instead of a dog, and there is a group cooking scene where no food is thrown(!), but brownies are burnt. Also, there is a kiss between the two 30-somethings that is not interrupted by a rainstorm, a snowball, or a busybody but fades to black. Do we see them waking up together the next morning? No. But I think Hallmark was testing the waters here. If the “family-friendly” crowd doesn’t rise up in protest, this type of scenario may be in the offing at some point for two mature adults.

By the end, Autumn, her work-life balance back in balance visits her mother and turns down Oprah’s invitation because a speaking tour would throw things back out of balance. The retreat owner returns to veterinary school in upstate New York which is just a “short plane ride” from Autumn’s home base, New York City. There is only a vague hint and hope that their relationship may turn into something more significant. Another interesting take for Hallmark.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

August 8, 2021