Jesse Moss

An Easter Bloom

/ Rebekahrox / 15 Comments

Flower Power

Aimee Teegarden plays a young lady in her mid twenties who has lost her faith because her Dad, who was very into church and Christianity, died of a heart attack. She has come home to “the farm” to help her still religious mother. The farm is a flower farm that is struggling because of what I like to call “bad business.” This is a condition that most Hallmark businesses that need to be saved suffer from. Basically, it can be defined as owners who, allergic to making a profit, try to run a business based on a very flawed business plan. This includes but is not limited to having a store with little to no merchandise in it, having a store with merchandise that people only buy a  month and a half out of the year, merchandise that no one would ever want and refusing to sell merchandise that they actually might want, a business that gives its products away for free, a business with no workers or volunteer workers, owners who have no idea how to use modern business tools like social media, etc., etc. To add to the financial difficulties, usually the owners live in huge and gorgeous  McMansions as do Aimee and her mother. Their lifestyle is supported by people who come to the flower farm to “pick their own bouquets”. There is no mention of any large clients who buy their flowers wholesale in bulk. No 1-800-FLOWERS inc., in sight. Plus this is one of those farms that don’t have any farm workers.

Because of too cold weather, the flowers of Aimee’s flower farm won’t grow in time for Easter, prime bouquet season. We know this because Aimee keeps stabbing at the concrete-like ground with a farm implement and muttering things about God in a bad way. Also they apparently don’t have a greenhouse. Presumably her farm is all perennials because there is no mention of not being able to plant seeds, which wouldn’t bloom in time for Easter anyway. But the odd thing is that there are flowers all around everywhere you look in this town, including in Aimee’s house. Where are those flowers coming from? Maybe Aimee and her mother’s farm is cursed, because it is apparently the only flower farm in the north east that can’t grow flowers. Maybe they need an exorcist in addition to the mother’s faith and prayer.  Anyway, the mortgage has not been paid in months and they just got a foreclosure letter from the bank. Aimee can’t believe it and doesn’t understand. Plus, the bank has turned down their loan application which is not surprising because they have not paid their mortgage in months and are foreclosing. It’s like trying to pay your credit card bill with your credit card. But Aimee and her mother are very disappointed that their fool-proof plan of borrowing money from the people you owe money to did not work. Possible salvation arrives when their good-guy neighbor offers to buy the farm for a generous amount of money which sounds like more than the farm is worth. He is turned down because that is the way it is with struggling businesses in Hallmarkland. The struggling owners always prefer to have the bank take over leaving them with nothing rather than selling their failing businesses for mucho dinero. In order to stave off disaster, Aimee is going to increase her hours at the coffee shop she works at and her mother will do more baking of Snickerdoodles that the coffee shop owner has generously offered to sell without taking a cut of the profits. Good plan. Solid. People like to give Aimee and her mother stuff throughout this whole movie. Also, the mom is going to increase her hours at the accountants. What? She works for an accountant? Amazing.

Thanks to her new friendship with a nice woman and former florist who has moved back to town from a long absence, Aimee enters a statewide flower arranging contest which she had no idea existed despite selling flowers for a living. The prize money for first prize is $20,000 dollars! Who is sponsoring this contest that can afford to offer a $20,000 purse for first prize? That’s the business I would want to be in. This nice woman is the mother of the new pastor at church who is the love interest. While teaching Aimee the basics of flower arranging she is also one of the several sources of inspirational quotes that inspire Aimee throughout the movie and, along with the handsome new pastor, lead her back to church and God.

Spoiler alert. To make a long story short, Aimee comes in second and doesn’t get the $20,000 needed to save the farm. The pastor and she become a couple after a breach is healed caused by Aimee eavesdropping on a private conversation the pastor was having and her misunderstanding of what was going on.  His mother heals a beef she has had with the town grouch with a heart of gold, who happens to be the winner of the $20,000 prize. Also the pastor tells his parishioners his big secret that he is a fan of extreme sports and because of an accident he had, he was almost paralyzed and one of his former students was left in a wheelchair. Throughout the movie, Aimee has been accepting gifts from enablers kind townspeople. Buying all of Mom’s snickerdoodles, free flowers so she doesn’t have to practice with artificial ones, free flower arranging lessons, free clothes, etc. So it is no surprise when the winner of the contest, for no reason whatsoever, bestows her prize money on Aimee with no strings attached. Aimee is pleased to accept.  So the farm is temporarily saved. Do the flowers ever sprout? We never find out. But it doesn’t matter, because Aimee and Mom are finally going to have another income stream thanks to the bright idea of turning the farm into a wedding venue. There is no evidence that they know any more about weddings than they do about flowers, but let’s have faith that it just might work. Bless them.  I’m giving this 5 stars because I like Ben Hollingsworth who played the pastor. His mother was nice and I liked the actress who played her too. It was a sweet movie that was very appropriate for Easter, being about miraculous happenings and such.

Rating: 5 out of 10.

The Christmas Promise

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What About the Leftovers?

This was a straightforward story of a young woman struggling to recover from the shock and grief of her fiancé getting killed during Christmas a year ago. She is provided tons of support and counsel by her “squad” of good friends and her father, ably played by Patrick Duffy. But it’s not until she becomes friends with the carpenter whom she hired to finish up her and her fiancés remodel of their old house that she begins to move forward. Also, in a nod to You’ve Got Mail and its predecessors, she pours out her heart one night via text message to her fiancé’s old cell phone # and she gets an answer. No, it’s not his ghost. This is not “Tales from the Crypt.”

There were some definite redeeming features in this show as well as some lazy writing that detracted from my enjoyment. First the positive. In a break with their usual policy of not showing dead former true loves (wouldn’t want anyone to get depressed during a Christmas movie) the doomed fiancé had a considerable role in this show. I liked this mature decision on the part of Hallmark, and they got a Hallmark familiar face (Giles Patton) to play him. I liked that Torrey DeVitto did not play the brave but po-faced grieving girlfriend. She was pretty cheerful and upbeat throughout. Although this might have been because of her lack of range, rather than a conscious creative choice. The carpenter/love interest was sexy and nice when he stopped coming across like a stalker. That awkward scene when he was in the Toy Store goofing around with the costumes trying to make Torrey laugh was just jaw-dropping. But he recovered. There is an adorable kissing scene towards the end which is one of the cutest and most surprising kisses I’ve ever seen on a Hallmark. Her friends and sister were loving but sometimes obnoxious, insensitive, and awkward in the face of the tragedy. I liked that. Just like real friends.

Now for the bad. Mostly, Torrey DeVitto had little to do in this acting-wise. But at the beginning, her reaction to the tragic and shocking news of her fiancé’s death was more like how someone would react to stepping on something disgusting. They mercifully cut the scene short and went right into “One Year Later.” As part of her healing process, she goes to a field to decorate a lone Christmas Tree which is at least 25 ft. Tall. (Not like on the poster.) She puts a few ornaments on at a time. By the end, we have a scene showing the huge tree fully decorated with huge ornaments. How did she do that? Did she hire a crew and a cherry picker?

Also, her sister has been cooking casseroles all year for her and Torrey has dozens of casseroles in the freezer over the refrigerator (Hermione’s Undetectable Extension Charm?). It’s kind of a running joke. One night, carpenter guy comes over, and she cooks them all at once! They’re sitting at the table with about 10 casseroles on it, and dipping into all of them! Her oven must have had the charm on it as well. First, It must have taken her hours to cook all those (or did she have the Time Turner as well?) “Oh, you must try the Broccoli and Cheese-It’s delicious!” It made no sense. I was so concerned with what they were going to do with all those leftovers, it just took me right out of the movie.

Now, these were scenes that were not necessary to the plot or character development. You can just laugh and shake your head. But they show just slap-dash bad writing, directing, or editing and a lack of respect for your audience. So, a mix of the pretty good with the pretty stupid, but not enough good to entirely ignore the silly stuff.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

November 3, 2021 (My birthday!)

Sweet Carolina

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Tragedy sends big city marketing executive Josie back to her small hometown to become guardian to her niece and nephew. With help from her ex-boyfriend Cooper, she and her family find a new way forward, together.

Hallmark Takes a Daring Step Forward

It’s not often Hallmark actresses get to portray anguish on camera. Luckily they have a real pro and bona fide actress in Lacey Chabert, who did a very credible job. I can think of very few in the stable of regulars who could have pulled off the scene where she learns her beloved sister and brother-in-law have been killed. I cried. The whole ensemble handled the story very well. You can tell they pulled out the “big guns” to meet the challenge of a script that actually called for a range of emotions: Gregory Harrison and Teryl Rothery as the parents, good ole Peter Benson as the city boyfriend who gets dumped for the small-town coach, who was played by the always welcome Tyler Hynes. I appreciated that they got a normal-looking kid who could act to play the introverted son.

There were very real problems and conflicts that had to be resolved. The father was a good guy, but too controlling. Gregory Harrison managed to keep him likable. I groaned when they were setting up for the customary Hallmark food fight ( or snowball fight if it’s winter) but it was actually funny, thanks to the performances.

It was good to see Hallmark break out of its own box a little bit. Fear not, most of the usual templates were still in place, but baby steps! Kudos.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

May 17, 2021

P. S. I just noticed that Lacey Chabert was actually one of the writers. You go, girl! **8 stars out of 10**

Moonlight in Vermont

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Nothing Special

Moonlight in Vermont is your typical country good-city bad, pretend boyfriend to make old boyfriend jealous, issues with dad Hallmark fare. The only thing to set it apart is good production values, a cute setting, and the always reliable Lacey Chabert. Unfortunately, she is not given too much to work with here. Her love interest is pretty cute as well and her stepmother is a nice smart woman and not a source of tension or conflict. Her rejection of city life for “stop to smell the roses” country living was too quick and not well supported. **6 out of 10**

Rating: 6 out of 10.

April 18, 2017