Erica Durance

A Scottish Love Scheme

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Matchmaking Moms Strike Again

I’m surprised this one was on the main Hallmark channel and not on Movies and Mysteries as it was about older singles pushed by loved ones to recover from divorce and death. It also involves difficult single parenthood and a secret deathly illness. And it stars Erica Durance who has starred in more than her fair share of the more serious-minded Movies and Mysteries end of the Hallmark brand.

Lily is leaving her old position in her ex-husband’s family’s brewery because she is really not part of the family anymore. She was the marketing director and somewhat of a guru responsible for putting the brewery on the map. But now she is going to pursue her own dreams of being a photographer and going to Seville Spain for a photography course (eye-roll). She is going by way of Scotland so she can go on a vacation with her ever-perky and sparkly mother who grew up there.

Little does she know that her cheerful mother, Cait, is suffering from a terminal illness and is keeping that information from her so it doesn’t cast a pall over their last trip together.  The two women are staying with the mother’s childhood friend, Mairi Campbell, who knows about her friend’s fate and that it is a secret. Not that that stops her from openly discussing her illness in front of her oldest son, Logan. He somehow  doesn’t catch that it is a big secret even though he hears her remonstrating with Cait about not telling Lily

The Scottish Campbell family own a struggling distillery whose salvation rests on their latest venture, a sweeter tasting whisky called “Frost” which will fail if they can’t get a last minute new label for the bottles. If only they knew someone familiar with the adult beverage  business and was artistic and a marketing guru! Fear not Scottish family! Salvation is right around the corner! Logan, who is a too-busy single father (is there any other kind?) runs the company and seemingly has some kind of past with Lily going by the smoldering looks and awkward meeting. She is, indeed, persuaded by the moms in spite of herself to give Logan a hand with the marketing of their new product.  She also establishes an immediate rapport with his young son, Finn, but Logan does not want the motherless bairn to get any ideas  since he knows Scotland is just a brief stop-over for her on the way to Spain. They agree to keep it professional, especially in front his wee son. They forgot to tell the Moms though because when Lily and he go out to dinner to discuss the marketing plan they start  in gossiping about how attracted their children are to each other, how it’s really a hot date, and all the “naughty fun” they hope they are getting up to. And right in front of the little kid! Honestly, talk about inappropriate!  I think their scheming was supposed to be cute, but I did not find it so. Logan had a point about getting his child’s hopes up for a new mother and what about Lily’s dream?

It all comes to a head when Cait collapses due to her illness and Lily learns the truth and that Logan and everyone knew about it all along. And we learn that her illness is liver cancer, of all things. This was a little surprising since both Lily and the Campbells have been in the alcohol business forever. All through their Scottish adventure, they have been mighty free with the wine and whiskey and Cait has been an enthusiastic partaker. Now I’m not accusing Hallmark of an attempt at black humor, irony, or trying to send some kind of puritanical message on the dangers of alcohol. Drinking wine and eating ice cream out of the carton are pretty much S.O.P for Hallmark heroines. I’m pretty sure this was just careless writing on the part of the scriptwriter. But really, of all of the terminal illnesses to choose from they pick liver cancer for this particular one?

The plot offered nothing more than the usual for this kind of thing except that Lily’s blow-up with Logan was thankfully of short duration. Everything seemed even more telegraphed than usual for a Hallmark. The acting of the 3 main women characters was a little too artificially chipper. Kind of stagey. Erica Durance is a beautiful woman, but the stylists for this movie did not do her any favors. 8 to 10 years needed to be shaved off her age to make her appear to be in the mid to late 30s of her character. Not a challenging assignment. Instead they stick her with a hair-do that makes her look like post 1950 Betty Crocker. Despite the Scottish background, I wasn’t a big fan of this one.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

Ms. Christmas Comes to Town

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Barbara Niven IS Ms. Christmas

**spoilers**

Ms. Christmas centers around a Holiday Shopping Network TV host (like QVC or Home Shopping Network) who has somehow become so beloved and admired that she has come to personify the Christmas season. Like a  real-life female Santa Claus but one whose career is hawking Christmas products on TV when she is not being honored by mayors or heading up Christmas Parades. This one definitely comes under one of those Hallmarks in which the business practicalities do not bear looking at too closely.  Like what does Ms. Christmas do the rest of the year? Anyway, We learn that Ms. Christmas has received the bad news that she has only 1 or 2 years to live due to a diagnosis that we can only assume is cancer though it is unspecified in the beginning. We learn later it is a brain tumor. This will be her last Christmas at the Network and she wants to make a kind of farewell tour in person. She has detected that people seem to be disconnected from the Christmas spirit this year. I guess sales are down. She is making her long-time top producer/right-hand woman/ surrogate daughter, Amanda, (Erica Durance) her replacement. And this tour will serve as her training ground for moving from behind the camera to in front of the camera.

The main plot turns on Ms. Christmas keeping her diagnosis a secret from everyone except the owner of the network (credibly played by Judith Maxie) who has insisted on having a Nurse (Brennan Elliot) accompany her on her tour. There is also the matter of Ms Christmas’s old fiance of many years ago reappearing to reignite their romance. The movie is saved by the marvelous performance of Barbara Niven as Ms. Christmas and Brennan Elliot as the sweet and compassionate nurse who falls in love with Amanda. They both give charming performances and save this movie from what, on paper, looks like a disaster waiting to happen. Barbara Niven is sparkly, sincere, and just lovely. She makes you forget that she is essentially a female Ron Popeil in Christmas attire. We wait in suspense for her heartbreaking secret to be revealed to her loving assistant. Although Erica Durance plays a good guy in this one, It must be said that her first reaction to learning about her surrogate mother’s diagnosis was really… umm, not compassionate. She was, of course, heartbroken, but also mad because she found out by accident on her own. She made it all about her and her hurt feelings that Ms. C. kept her tragic diagnosis a secret from her. Her mentor apologizes and explains that telling her about her illness would somehow have made it “real,” but Amanda accuses her of being selfish! She leaves her side to think about things leaving Ms Christmas there alone and devastated. I mean I was kind of expecting something of this sort, as Hallmark is all about last-minute conflict, but I was still shocked at her behavior. Thankfully Amanda does come to her senses. I was expecting her to have a problem with Nurse Brennan keeping it a secret from her as well, which also would have been very bad. But thankfully, she does not blame Brennan at all and the romance between them doesn’t miss a beat. Then poor Ms. C. has a bad reaction to some of her meds and collapses. She ends up in the hospital and Barbara Niven does not have a speck of makeup on for those scenes. I was very impressed. (And she still looks gorgeous.) I’ll say it again. Barbara Niven really gives a terrific and authentic performance. 10 Christmas Stars. Her old love persistently pursues her and convinces her to give him another chance despite her terminal illness. Sadly, there is no last-minute Christmas miracle, which I definitely would have been OK with me in this case. The ending was open-ended with Ms. Christmas still alive and kicking so…Maybe? Despite everything the movie was not depressing thanks to some humor and good acting.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

Unexpected Grace

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Past is Prologue

When I read what this was about, I started watching it fully expecting to turn it off.  It is about a mother whose teenage daughter has passed away who befriends the daughter of a single widower. Before she died, Toni, the daughter,  released a balloon in the air with a short letter searching for a best friend. It is found by 13-year-old Grace two years later who was forced to move into their new town by her father because of his job. He didn’t consult her about the move, and she is resentful. Their relationship has suffered over and above normal teenager/parent friction. She is having trouble fitting in at school and making friends. When Grace follows the notes invitation to write back, I thought I saw where this might be going. I was on high alert and expecting to pull the plug as I did not want to get entangled in a maudlin grief fest and a mother trying to replace her dead child with a vulnerable live one.

Well, it didn’t go that way at all. The mother,  Noelle, does respond to Grace’s letter, but under her own name. It is true that she does not tell Grace that Toni has died nor that she is her mother but I felt it was out of empathy and sensitivity and that she did not want to hurt or discomfort Grace. She responds to Grace’s emails a couple of more times, but, realizing that this is heading down a dangerous road, tells Grace the truth about who she is and kindly tells her that there will be no more emails.  She thinks that is the end of it, But to Noelle’s consternation, Grace shows up at Noelle’s door still wanting to be friends with Toni.  Noelle still can’t bear to tell her right then that her daughter has passed away. But shortly thereafter, along with Grace’s dad, Jack (Michael Rady), who she has gotten to know and like thanks to a series of coincidences, does tell her the truth about Toni’s passing. This decision of not to prolong the misunderstanding flies in the face of how things usually go with  Hallmark stories. Grief is to be wallowed in, and open communication is to be avoided at all costs.  So instead of the plot getting stalled over a prolonged deception and lack of truth-telling, the plot explores other aspects of the characters’ progress toward peace and happiness. We follow Grace’s path towards success in school and making friends, Her father’s possible romantic entanglement with a neighbor, Jack and Grace’s continuing frustrations with each other and how they resolve them, and Noelle coming to terms with her imminent divorce.  And of course Noelle and Jack possibly making a romantic connection. There is another crisis later in the story where it looks like Grace and Michael may have to move away again, negating the progress toward healing that, together, all three of the main characters have made. How it is all resolved brings all of the threads together in a touching way.  It hints that it was more than just coincidences that brought these three together for their own good and the good of the community. Perhaps a little celestial magic and angelic guiding hands were at play as well. “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” There is a lot of Shakespeare in this as well.

All of the actors did a wonderful job, but special kudos go to  Erica Tremblay, a serious young actress who has appeared in several other Hallmark movies. I’ve always liked Michael Rady. Erica Durance not so much, but she is a good actress.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

We Need A Little Christmas

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Good Grief!

I may have shed a few tears at the end of this one. Which is a good thing for a Hallmark movie. Although a little over the top for most of the movie, Lynn Whitfield bought it home in the final touching scenes. The other great thing about this one was the male love interest. The actor was so appealing playing a normal-looking guy in his 40s who was popular with and respected by everyone from the rich and influential to the humble and normal people. He was just such a mensch. The actor, Patrick Sabongui, was also a standout in Christmas Sail where he played a similar character.

Erica Durance plays a recently widowed mother of a young son trying to work through her own grief and help her boy with his. Unfortunately, she has the wrong end of the stick as far as her strategy and her son doesn’t want to open up to her because he doesn’t want to hurt her feelings. She runs a small boutique architectural firm specializing in remodeling businesses and homes. She is very disorganized which we see immediately because of the pile of unopened mail on the desk and won’t delegate to her very competent employee who has been with the firm from the beginning. I hated that so she got on my bad side right away. (Her employee takes it upon herself to take care of the mail near the end of the movie and she finds a $5000 check the business is owed!) In addition, I could feel her jealousy of Lynn Whitfield’s closeness with her son throughout the movie. Durance’s deftness in conveying this was masterful. It was very tense and uncomfortable. It was almost a relief when she finally erupts in a very ugly encounter with her over her son’s opening up to her and not herself. She regrets it almost immediately and she did redeem herself in the end. Overall she was a nice woman and good at the creative end of her business, so I did forgive her.

I find it very difficult to watch actresses of a certain age who have sabotaged their ability to convey emotion with facial expressions because of Botox and fillers. Sadly, Erica Durance has succumbed to this common practice and though she was good, she could have been better. Although maybe, in this case, the subtlety of expression was a plus. I know that sometimes these actresses are between a rock and hard place and are under a lot of pressure to take care of that forehead or whatever. But I find it too distracting. It’s all I can look at when it is so obvious and takes me right out of the movie.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

October 27, 2022

North to Home

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Finding Your True North

This is another high-quality offering by Hallmark and was shown on Hallmark Murders and Mysteries. They seem to be using this branch of their network to show productions that go a little deeper and are a little more complex than a romantic comedy. They are more about family relationships, drama, overcoming problems, and learning life lessons. There is a bit of a romance included but it’s hardly the main attraction.

The movie starts off with three sisters and their relationship. The two oldest live in the same city, not in Alaska, and are at odds because the oldest, Hannah, is so wrapped up in her career that she has no time to spare for the younger and her two daughters. She is married happily, and also happily, they do not have any children. The younger, Beth, is a happily married stay-at-home Mom, who is getting tired of that role and feels unfulfilled. She is being tempted to go back to her successful career. The younger sister, Posy, lives in Alaska with the parents. She yearns for travel and adventure but feels obligated to take over their parents’ café upon their imminent retirement. They are all about to meet up in Alaska to celebrate their mother’s 60th birthday which is also the 25th anniversary of a mysterious bad happening.

As the movie goes on, surprising aspects of the girls’ relationship and their family are revealed. All is not as we were first led to believe. The career-oriented Hannah learns she is pregnant (not terminally ill-Yay!). What will be the fallout with Adam her husband? Beth’s husband finds out she is secretly testing the waters of going back to her successful career and feels betrayed. Posey is falling in love with a mountain climber and travel writer which falls in with her dreams of travel as opposed to running her parents’ café.

The lesson of the story is “”sometimes you find your calling but sometimes you’re calling finds you” and each of the sisters in turn learns this is true for them. In the process, a tragedy is explored, a mother is released from a 25-year-long guilt trip, and a young man finds closure. And revelations lead to understanding and new paths forward.

The actors were well cast, and their parts well-acted, especially Kimberley Sustad as the middle sister and overprotective mother, Beth. At one point she is accused of “Catastrophizing everything!” I also loved Matthew James Dowden who played Adam, Hannah’s husband. He usually plays sketchy characters, but he was wonderful as an unqualified good guy in this. The one fly in the ointment was the casting of Luke, Posey’s love interest. His looks, demeanor, and speech cried vacant surfer dude, not educated sophisticated world traveler and author. It was laughable. Where was Ali Liebert, the director? Everything else was so good.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

January 13, 2022

Open by Christmas

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When Nicky finds an unopened Christmas card from a high school secret admirer, she and her best friend Simone search to find and thank the anonymous author.

Fantastic!

**Spoilers**

Once again, Hallmark is raising the bar, as this entry in the Hallmark Christmas movie sweepstakes demonstrates. Although many of their new movies follow the usual pattern, many have not. This one, for example, features a dual storyline of two best friends who have separate and different challenges to overcome. It leaves the well-worn and predictable path in some refreshing ways.

Simone is getting ready to marry her fiance during the Christmas season. She is conflicted because her 15-year-old son is growing up and, she thinks, away from her. He is bonding too almost too well with her fiance! Both of them spend more time with each other than with her.  In response, she becomes clingy and tense. To add to the strained atmosphere, her future mother-in-law will be visiting and she doesn’t like her, thinking her too critical.

Her friend, Nicky, played by Alison Sweeney who is wonderful in this, is coming home for Christmas. Right away, this one got my attention. When her parents tell her fearfully that they are selling her childhood home, instead of weeping and wailing and trying to “save” it, she is all for it! Hallmark indulging in a little inside self-deprecating humor?  Anyway, Nicky is a confirmed single woman who finds an anonymous Christmas love letter that was written to her when she was in high school. Nicky always felt she was an outsider during her high school years and thinks of those years with embarrassment and regret. In part, it is why she has remained single. She has been afraid of rejection and never put herself “out there.” The letter shows her that maybe she was mistaken in her perspective. The two friends go on a mission to find the letter writer, and Nicky learns that most of her classmates admired and liked her and her impact was positive.

Brennan Elliot, playing against type as an awkward, shy, and a little too eager real-estate agent plays Nicky’s love interest. He was very winning in this role and the two have super chemistry. Lacey Chabert should be jealous. It is telegraphed right away that he is the letter writer. I will not go further into the plot as it is complex and many-layered and this review would be very long. What made it great was the unexpected ways things developed. The two friends do not pander to each other and tell each other the truth no matter how unpleasant. “Be a normal person!” They get genuinely hurt by upset and with each other but in the way of true friends do not let things fester. The mother-in-law is set up to be over-critical and unpleasant. They do clash, but she ends up being supportive and gives Simone good advice. There was an interesting shocker when it is revealed that Jeremy, Simone’s fiance is the one who wrote Nicky the love letter! What?! Wait!

 It was heartwarming. It was suspenseful.  It had some important lessons to impart.  It was humorous. “Nothing says “Christmas” like a tamale!” And best of all, there was no meaningless Christmas filler. Every scene was important and advanced the plot. There were a couple of things I could be snarky about but I won’t.  It was fantastic.

Rating: 10 out of 10.

November 21, 2021