Kevin McGarry

Villa Amore

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Fixer Upper

Some years ago there was a movie called Under the Tuscan Sun with Diane Lane, Lindsay Duncan, and Sandra Oh, which I very much enjoyed. It, like this one, is about a woman disappointed and hurt by love who goes to rural Italy to recover, and ends up impetuously buying a small villa and restoring it to its former glory. In both movies, they slowly but surely become part of their communities, and there is romance, old people, and a pregnancy of a side character (sorry Sandra Oh, you stole the show. No offence intended) to deal with. Everything is set against the difficult but ultimately rewarding restoration of the old home. Of course, there are many differences, but this review is not a “Compare and Contrast” essay question so I will stop there. I’m just saying, if you enjoyed the quiet pace and captivating atmosphere of the older movie, you will probably like this one, if you like to watch Hallmarks.

Liara’s fiancé dumps her in the final stages of preparing for their wedding. They were going to go to Italy for their honeymoon because that is where her mother and late father met. Her mother convinces her to go on her honeymoon by herself and encourages her to try to visit the little town where she and Liara’s father fell in love. There was a pretty villa there that he had promised to buy for her one day. Bless their hearts. Young Love. Liara takes her mother’s advice and we have some beautiful shots of Rome. It hasn’t changed a bit. She meets a handsome American with dual citizenship (Kevin McGarry) helping his cousin in his bakery and she is surprised that his Nonna lives in the same little village that her mother visited. On a whim she decides to go there and sees advertisements for a group of old Italian villas that are on sale for 1 euro each. And what do you know but there is the same villa that her parents had always had a photograph of in a place of honor among them! She decides to buy it as a symbolic gesture for her Mom to fulfil her youthful dream. It’s only 1 euro, right? What could go wrong? Snicker. At some point she will re-sell it at her leisure since she doesn’t plan on living there. She is going back to Chicago tomorrow. What an idiot. As Leo, the handsome American, points out, she didn’t read the fine print. Or think this through at all. It turns out that she signed off on investing in completely renovating the building and she only has 3 months to complete it as she is an American and her visa will expire in 90 days. If she doesn’t follow through, she will be persona non grata throughout Europe.

90 days may not seem much time for restoring a dilapidated falling apart estate in a foreign country in real life, but it is an eon in Hallmark time. A similar daunting project was completed in Hallmark’s Tis the Season to be Irish in under two weeks. (Seemingly.) I really liked the relatively slower pace of this one. The restoration, the romance and Liara’s slow integration into the community was given time to develop which added an authenticity seldom seen in Hallmarks. The villa, which does not even have running water or electricity, is slowly (but fastly in the end) brought into shape with ex-lawyer and current contractor/handyman, Leo’s, help and results in an enviably beautiful home. She makes friends. In the process, Liara starts to struggle with the idea of returning to her career in Chicago and leaving the life she has found in Italy and her romantic relationship with Leo. Happily and mysteriously, Liara is in the enviable position of not having to consider money and how to get it in this movie. Also there is a donkey, olive trees, and she finds a letter from her father in a box of old mail. It all comes to a head when her ex finds her in Italy and wants to resume their relationship like nothing happened and a major real estate development firm shows interest in buying her property. 

One thing I really liked was what happened when her ex-fiancé showed up unexpectedly. Usually the new love interest will misinterpret some interaction between the ex-couple and go flouncing off in a huff, resulting in the big misunderstanding. That didn’t happen here. Instead, Leo starts to tell him off and almost punches him for what he did to Liara. Liara stops him and tells him off herself. He says “my bad” and goes away. No big last 15 minute romantic conflict!

Eloise Mumford who played Liara is a bit of a hit or miss with me. Comedy is not her forte. And there were some scenes in this movie which could have been played for more humor. Unfortunately, the actress’s resting face is “On the Verge of Tears.” Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn’t. Also I wish that Liara’s mother had been more involved in the story. She doesn’t come to Italy until all is settled as part of the epilogue. I would have liked to have seen her earlier helping with the renovation and healing from the death of her husband.

All in all there was a lot to appreciate in this one including the cinematography. It stepped outside the box in more ways than one. But, for me, it was missing that special spark that makes it a top tier Hallmark.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10.

Checkin’ it Twice

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Once was Enough

This was not a very auspicious beginning to Hallmark’s annual Countdown to Christmas. There was nothing offensive or stupid about it. But it was boring. Nothing Happened. About 45 minutes into it I kept muttering to myself, “Nothing is happening here,” “Nothing is happening.” Everything was proceeding according to formula and there was no reason to hope anything might change to elevate it above the standard Hallmark background comfort watch. I won’t complain that it was predictable because we all know it is about the journey, not the destination. But there was no plot, no drama, no romance, almost no comedy, and no anticipation of what might be around the corner. The two leads, Kim Matula of the marvelous Ghost of Christmas Always and Kevin McGarry were fine. Ms Matula in particular. But Geez. Give the girl something to work with other than gazing meaningfully.

Ashley is a nice girl from Idaho Falls who has been being successful in real estate in New York City for the last 5 years. The movie opens with her breaking up with her boyfriend for poaching one of her clients while at the airport going home for Christmas. Scott is also at the airport breaking up with his girlfriend. We soon learn he is what I guess is the equivalent of a Minor League Hockey player who is in early 30s,  aging out, and has never been good enough to make it to the actual NHL, which has been his whole life’s focus. So kind of a loser. To add to the sadness, he is known as “Grandpa” or “Pops” and his father is a famous star Hockey player who has ignored him all of his life. To subtract from any sympathy we might feel for him he is kind of an arrogant jerk. The two meet and slowly slowly boring baby step by boring baby step come to realize that their happiness lies in Idaho Falls: Ashley as a local real estate agent selling houses to families instead of shopping malls or hotels to corporations, and Scott as a coach instead of a player.

Before they get there, they go through the usual Christmas activities and frolics, and Scott, who is renting a cottage on Ashley’s family’s property is drawn in and welcomed by her warm loving family. He discovers he is pretty good at advising and coaching his teammates and little local kiddies. Meanwhile, nothing interesting or funny happens barring Scott trying to drink a glass of Grannie’s famously foul-tasting and possibly poisonous eggnog against the advice of the family. I was hoping for perhaps ex-boyfriend Trevor to show up begging Ashley’s forgiveness ( a good groveling scene is always good for some entertainment) or Scott’s Dad to show up all sorry for his past neglect, but no such luck. It’s just all sweetness and light. After the usual “Christmas or Career” dilemma that Hallmark usually ends their movies on, the two are reunited at the airport and go home to Ashley’s “goofy” (not that goofy) family together. Hopefully to embark on their first date the next day. The best thing about the 88 minutes I spent with this movie were the previews for the next day’s entry in the Countdown to Christmas lineup, Where are You, Christmas?. That one actually looks pretty good.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

The Wedding Veil Expectations

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Expectations Met, but not Exceeded

I found this only mildly entertaining. It was good to see the three women together again, I like the actress’s rapport and their characters’ solid long-term supportive friendship, and Lacey Chabert’s wardrobe choices remain a constant source of fascination. I will be front and center for Autumn Reeser’s turn in the spotlight next week. Or at least my DVR will be.

Basically, the plot was a series of bumps in the road and challenges revolving around Lacey’s character discovering that she’s pregnant, and dealing with a new and antagonistic executive director who has complete creative control over the museum in which she devotedly works. And other unrelated stuff. It is an episodic plot rather than one having a focused beginning, middle, and end.

First, we have the dilemma of how and when she is going to break the happy baby news to her husband. Her perfect romantic setting and plans are upended a couple of times. Finally, she just bursts out with the news after a little fight and all is well.

We have her hormones acting up and some amusing scenes regarding forgetfulness, cravings, aversions, nausea, and heightened emotions. Lacey is great in these scenes.

We have the loneliness of her mother-in-law established. A suitable love interest presents himself when she holds the magical veil. But hold the phone. Peter, her son and Lacey’s husband disapproves and is suspicious. He is rude, so we have the resulting break-up. She tells her swain she is still in love with her dead husband and also the new relationship is making her son unhappy. So which is it?

Meanwhile, we have Peter, the son and husband in question struggling with his conflicted feelings. There is an awkward but, thanks to the actors, entertaining, first meeting at a restaurant.

We have a big home renovation money-pit sub-plot. Lacey and Peter have bought an old historic home with lots (and lots) of constantly emerging problems. They pop up throughout the movie. They did not generate too much concern though, because Peter and Lacey are fabulously wealthy and can well handle the expense. Thus, Peter’s frustration and distress over all the bad news the doom merchant contractor continues to bring is kind of boring and comes across as a little whiny.  And why does a contractor care about Lacey’s color choice for her curtains anyway? Picky, I know, but it was just one of those “huh?” moments.

And Let’s not forget Peter’s tussles with the typically mean school board regarding the art program he heads. Several scenes about that.

And wait, there’s more. We have Lacey’s conflict with her “arrogant, opinionated” boss who wants to improve the suffering attendance at the museum by changing up the art. This includes getting rid of the first trilogy’s Amici portrait and the magical wedding veil it depicts. The drama of the conflict was blunted for me because I actually saw his point. In all of the scenes in the museum, I never saw one paying visitor. He was just doing his job. He thinks Lacey is a dilettante and overly emotional and invested in lace. In fairness, I couldn’t really blame him. Also I kind of liked the S.O.B. I was hoping that he would touch the veil, find love with Lucy the assistant, and turn into a good guy.

Throughout it all, we have Lacey on the phone or in person with her buddies venting, confiding, and getting advice and support. Alison Sweeney shone particularly in one of these scenes, turning insignificant dialogue into a genuinely touching half-a-minute.

All is resolved happily: Lacey’s professional challenges in particular by a scheme that dramatically bolsters the museum’s languishing attendance and saves the painting. It should have been enacted long before. I guess sometimes it takes a  bad guy to get the good guys off their patooties.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

Feeling Butterflies

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Confused and Complicated

**Spoilers**

On the surface, this was pretty standard stuff as far as plot and character. But if you look harder, it featured some very awkward elements and a very Strange-for-Hallmark romance. First of all, 2 very contentious and competitive butterfly wranglers not only in the same city, but booking parties right next door to each other? I had no idea that releasing butterflies at parties was such a booming dog-eat-dog business! Our heroine, Emily, hates her rival Mandy because Mandy treats butterfly parties as a business instead of a calling. Plus, she’s cheaper. She does not have a deep personal connection to the insects like Emily does. Emily suspects Mandy of salting her butterfly releases with moths and actually has the gall to also do Puppy and Kitty parties as well. Hopefully, these dog and cat parties don’t involve releasing them into the wild like the butterflies. Better just shrug and move on. This is one of those Hallmark set-ups that you can’t think about too hard.

Emily’s love interest is a single Dad who hires her to give a party for his daughter. The romance is unusual for Hallmark. Emily is very attracted to him but is worried that he is still hung up on his ex. They actually have a pretty lengthy conversation about that issue, and guess what? He actually is! I don’t know why because she is rude, pushy, bossy and they have nothing in common except a 2-year history. He says “It’s complicated.” End of. He thinks. But no. Emily wants the cards on the table and good for her. He admits he really likes Emily but he is very “confused.” He is so “confused” that after thinking about it long and hard, he chooses the ex over Emily and drives off for the airport, New York City, and a high-paying career! And Emily is perfectly OK with that. In fact, she says that “she’s never felt better!” She seems to mean it because although she looks sad for about a minute, there are no tears or hanging around in her PJs eating ice cream out of the carton. Although this spoke volumes for her strength and self-sufficiency and not needing a man to complete her, it kind of sucked for the romance. At this point, the Hallmark Gods had to intervene because God forbid a woman is alone with friends, family, and a thriving business at the end of a Hallmark movie. He changes his mind off-camera and comes back. And now she is really really happy. We get the final (and only) kiss and fade out before he can change his mind again.

In addition to the problematic romance, We have a creepy and possibly mentally ill father. His antics at a party near the end were not funny. He was horrifying. And I found his conversation with Emily about her attraction to Garrett inappropriate and uncomfortable. Throw in Emily’s self-righteous and judgmental attitude towards Mandy, a truly hateful and psycho bride, an abundance of dead and diseased caterpillars, and losing the entertaining Mandy for most of the movie until she is resurrected and rehabilitated at the end, this movie had me feeling caterpillars, not butterflies.

Rating: 5 out of 10.

March 14, 2022

The Wedding Veil

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Lacey and Lace

This was pretty entertaining and I’m looking forward to the next 2 installments of the trilogy starring Autumn Reeser and Alison Sweeney. This first one featured Lacey Chabert with Kevin McGarry playing the love interest.

Three friends are in San Francisco for their yearly get-together. They are out antiquing and Lacey spies a beautiful vintage wedding veil. The owner tells them that the veil comes with magical powers. Whoever owns the veil will meet their true love while it is in their possession. The girls decide to all buy it together, and Lacey will take it home. She soon meets Kevin McGarry and they have an instant connection. Coincidentally they both live in Boston where they plan to continue to see each other. While at the airport, Kevin sees the wedding veil with Lacey and overhears her having a conversation about planning a wedding that he assumes is hers. (It’s not.) He immediately gives her the brush and leaves. Lacey is confused and disgusted.

They keep meeting up while in Boston because Lacey is an assistant curator of a museum and he is the rich philanthropist who is hosting a gala to raise money for the museum. What follows is a quite amusing series of encounters between the two where Lacey seems very open to a relationship while Kevin thinks she is about to get married. He acts very attracted to her and then keeps backing off, confusing and angering poor Lacey to no end. Meanwhile, he can’t understand why such a seemingly nice woman is acting like a cheat and a tease. It’s Cute. The truth finally comes out after an hour and 15 minutes. The subplot is also interesting. Lacey discovers a dirty and faded 19th-century portrait of a bride wearing a very familiar-looking veil in the Museum’s basement and finds out it is a lost masterpiece. She wants it to be the centerpiece of the gala but it has to be restored in record time. So there is a lot of running around and intrigue over that.

Lacey’s wardrobe choices in this were very odd. She wears a lot of flowery floating low cut off-the-shoulder dresses one of which, I swear, looked like a filmy nightgown. You could see right through much of it. They would have been OK for a formal garden party but not for shopping, at work, or rooting around filthy basements. I’m also not sure I liked the pairing with Kevin McGarry although they were fine individually. The chemistry between the 3 queens of Hallmarkland was off the charts, however.

After Lacey and Kevin tie the knot, Autumn Reeser will be taking the veil to Italy with her to have it researched to see if it’s the same veil in the portrait. The suspense is killing me.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

January 10, 2022

Random Acts of Christmas

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Bad Acting on Display Here

A single mother and journalist is investigating random acts of kindness in her hometown. Are they random or are they the doings of one “secret Santa?” She figures out it has to be someone rich. The guy and Patrick Duffy and Jaclyn Smith are fine. They are the ones that rescue this one from 1 or 2 stars. I also appreciated the semi-original premise of the plot. The actress and her annoying son doom this movie. I can’t believe the good reviews. They were horrible. The kid was the epitome of the super cheerful sweet cliché fantasy child. And the Mom was like a Miss America wanna be. So phony. I choose to blame the director, as I actually did not mind the actress in one of her efforts and the kid is not to be blamed as yet for bad acting. As far as her character. Why is she so mad when she finds out who the secret Santa is? Probably because she hadn’t thought through the idea that the guy was hooked on her and he was super-rich. Well, she finally got it. Set for life. Get a prenup, dude.

Rating: 2 out of 5.

November 8, 2020

Winter Castle

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Sn-o-o-o-o-o-w Boring.

This was a very poorly written Hallmark. I’m not talking about the plot, which usually goes without saying in Hallmarkland. The dialogue was sub-par but my main problem was the character of the love interest and his little girl. Neither one of them had all of their marbles. What kid of her age would even be vaguely interested in the stupid lost polar bear and orca bedtime story that the heroine started to tell her? Let alone transfixed in wide-eyed wonder. No kid of normal intelligence. I predict a very disappointing career for our heroine, an aspiring children’s author. And what single guy would invite his helpful single neighbor to a destination wedding unless he was committed to their future, and not “confused?” An idiot, that’s who. Once again we are expected to be interested in spending two hours with pleasant and attractive but boring cookie-cutter characters whose stories have nothing to engage the viewer. I can tolerate humdrum characters if the story is involving, or an indifferent story if the characters are appealing. But not the lack of both. Three stars for the reject’s nice song, and the crazy Ice Castle, and real snow.

Rating: 4 out of 10.

January 15, 2019

Love at First Bark

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Portland interior designer Julia Galvins adopts a dog and seeks the help of expert and handsome dog trainer Owen Michaels. When she is hired to design a nursery and a “puppery,” as well as plan a puppy shower fund-raiser for a pregnant client and her pregnant dog, Julia asks Owen’s advice and the two begin to fall for each other. But when she feels threatened by Owen’s ex-girlfriend, Julia realizes that her “lead with love” approach she uses with her new dog-and with the rest of her life-isn’t working very well, discovering that if she leads with confidence instead, the rest will fall into place.

Boring and Banal

Love at First Bark is one of Hallmark’s more mediocre offerings. Other than some cute dogs and the odd dog-training tutorial, this one has nothing at all to recommend it. It is a very lazy effort with a cookie-cutter script and unremarkable leads. Usually one can find something to like in these things: a little unexpected twist, appealing actors, some cute lines, an old favorite star in a secondary role, some genuine chemistry between the leads, a villain you love to hate, a heart-tugging moment, etc., etc. This one was a complete waste of time.

The heroine is particularly annoying. She stubbornly refuses a handsome and sweet dog-trainer’s help in getting her new pooch under control until she finally changes her mind. She is very immature about her business and her love life. When she sees her new boyfriend who is obviously and unaccountably in love with her being nice to his ex-wife, she goes to pieces. He has outright told her he no longer has any interest in his ex and why. She sees his ex give him a smooch in the middle of a crowded party. Not a hidden alcove, a crowded party. This is so upsetting to her that she offends a valuable and much-needed client and petulantly breaks up with the dog trainer on the spot. She shuts him down when he literally begs her to listen. Very mean and unreasonable. He is very confused and doesn’t understand. She passive-aggressively tells him that she needs to focus on her new business (after she just dissed a potential client, mind you) and doesn’t have time for a relationship. Unfortunately for him, she apologizes soon after and he stupidly takes her back. That is all. As another reviewer noted, and adding to the irritating nature of this Hallmance, are Julia’s false eyelashes. They are so thick and long that she could literally sweep the floor with them. They deserve a cast credit of their very own. It gets 3 stars from me because the dog trainer/love interest (Kevin McGarry) was a super nice guy and very good-looking. The rest of the cast, including Leanne Lapp, was also very competent. **3 stars out of 10**

Rating: 3 out of 10.

April 13, 2017