Nikki Deloach

A Country Wedding and The Perfect Catch

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A Reassessment

Withdrawal from my routine of watching then reviewing the new Hallmark (and occasionally other) Christmas movies led me to re-watch two old Hallmarks from 2015 and 2017. These are ones that I have rated but never reviewed. A Country Wedding, I originally rated as a 7, and The Perfect Catch I rated as a 6. A Country Wedding is a favorite with Hallmarkies with glowing reviews on IMDb and is frequently included in “All-time Favorite, Best of” type lists. Also, it stars one of my favorites, Autumn Reeser.  I anticipated going up in my rating as is usual with movies that I originally rated long ago. With due respect for their recent first-rate efforts, I have sadly had to adjust my standards downwards for Hallmarks in the last few years. At the end, it remained a 7. The Perfect Catch stars a favorite duo:  Nikki Deloach and Andrew Walker. I bumped this one up to a 7 when I finished with it.

I was pretty disappointed in A Country Wedding given my expectations.  Autumn as the owner of a struggling horse rescue ranch was great of course, and Jesse Metcalfe as a country music star was a good match for her.  Also good was Laura Mennell in a ropy blond wig as Jesse’s movie star fiance as was Lauren Holly as her henchwoman/manager. Jesse leaves  Lauren in Hollywood while he cuts ties with his past by finally selling his dead family’s old farm. While there in the country he gets re-acquainted with his old childhood best friend and next-door neighbor, played by Autumn.

There were two main reasons why this one did not impress me as much as I thought it would. First, the southern accents were way over the top and really got on my nerves. Related is the SOP of stereotyping southern small-town people. More importantly, were the characters of the two leads. Autumn was smart and strong. Jesse was dumb and weak. What was he doing engaged to that shallow self-centered Hollywood thing to begin with?  But worse, he persists in stubbornly deceiving himself that he lu-u-u-vs her and continues planning the wedding in the face of huge red flags, not to mention his growing love for Autumn. She is helping him plan the wedding as he had the fine idea to get married there in a barn instead of in Hollywood. When he kisses her in front of everyone on a crowded dance floor, Autumn wisely realizes she is getting in over her head with an engaged man and backs off. Jesse won’t let her alone and follows her around like a puppy dog. He doesn’t get it. Since he won’t take the hint, Autumn is forced to lay it all on the table with no kidding around, even telling him that he does not love his fiance because he doesn’t even know her.  This straightforward honesty is rare in a Hallmark. But instead of seeing the light, he ignores the good advice and ends up apologizing for the kiss explaining that he just got “lost in the moment” and was carried away. It takes the spectacular arrival of his fiance and a lot more hits with the clue stick before he finally finally finally wises up. Autumn takes him back at the end, the fact that he bought her ranch (without knowing it!) having nothing to do with it, of course.

A Perfect Catch met my expectations of impressing me more now than it did originally. It deserved to be bumped up a notch. First of all the easy rapport between Nikki Deloach and Andrew Walker was very enjoyable as usual. Andrew plays a star pitcher who hasn’t been able to find a new team after giving up a grand slam in the World Series. He returns to his hometown and his Mom and Dad to lay low while waiting on his agent to bring him some good news. He meets his old girlfriend, Nikki, who owns a struggling diner in town. She is a divorced single mother of a son who loves baseball but is awful at it.  While he coaches her son he starts to feel more and more at home in the small town and with Nikki. Meanwhile, he repairs the strained relationship with his Dad and encourages Nikki in her brave idea for boosting the diner’s profile and sales. Even though she is in debt and against the advice of her stick-in-the-mud risk-averse accountant boyfriend, she buys a food truck. Her standing her ground against her boyfriend and giving him the heave-ho in a timely and decisive manner is definitely cheer-worthy. And the food truck is a massive success! Yay! Andrew retires from pitching but gets a great position in  MLB that allows him to stay with Nikki and her son! Yay! Plus he will coach at the local school! Yay! And the kid hits a home run! Yay! Totally predictable but very satisfying with an especially neatly resolved and very happy ending for everyone involved. And a special shout out to Lisa Durupt, Hallmark sister/supportive friend/ second fiddle extraordinaire who gives another cute and charming performance. Also liked Andrew’s haircut. He should go back to that floppy-hair look.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

Five More Minutes: Moments Like These

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Five More Minutes: Take Two. Will there be Three?

This is one of those dramatic heartfelt Hallmarks that show on Hallmark Movies and Mysteries. It is a follow-up to last year’s production based on the country song, Five More Minutes. In both, a grieving person gets 5 more minutes with a dead loved one. It looks like it may be an annual thing. I gave the first one 8 out of 10 stars, and I gave this one the same rating.

Ashley Williams is on a roll with me. She plays Kaitlin, a still-grieving widow of a 10-year-old boy, her husband having died 4 years earlier in a car wreck. Her performance was considerably toned down from her old Miss Perky McPerkison energy. She should play brave grieving widows more often. She still flashes that killer smile, but you know what? The girl can’t help it. There is some concern about her son, who though a nice kid, has become more and more withdrawn and introverted since his father’s death. Kaitlin goes home to Colorado from Los Angeles to spend Christmas with her husband’s family and decide what to do with her beloved home which has been vacant for the last 4 years.  She has received a very tempting job offer from a regular client but she would have to relocate to London.

While at a local Christmas fair, she meets a nice handsome man, Matthew, who it turns out was an old schoolmate and friend of her husband. They really hit it off, but the relationship suffers a blow when he fails to disclose that he is the representative of a huge corporation that covets her house and land. Luckily for their budding romance/friendship, her trust is restored with his explanation, apology, contrition, and his very positive relationship with her son. Also, in a clear conflict of interest, he is helping her to fix up the house in order for her to get the best price possible from his employer or another party. This seemed very shady to me.  His employer, who is also a friend and kind of worships the ground he walks on because of his honesty and integrity (?!) lets this go for some reason and in fact wants to hire him for his New York office.

Meanwhile, her son is having short encounters with progressively older boys every few days. They disappear mysteriously but not before leading him to friendship, community involvement, and finding his hidden talents.  He is finally healing and blossoming in this new community of Hollowford. Cameo Alert: Nikki Deloach as Clara Bingham, the art teacher and lead in the first Five More Minutes.

Everything comes to a head when she decides to sell the house to Matthew’s business partner for a ton of money and move to London. Things start to fall apart with her relationship with her son, who wants to stay in Hollowford,  the sale of the house, and her relationship with Matthew. She goes down to the basement in despair and what she sees there shows her that the boys her son has mentioned are none other than her dead husband coming back to help their son and who, in a  kind of spooky jump scare, then appears to her. They talk for 5 minutes.

The kid actor was fantastic with a layered, touching, and authentic performance in a part that could have been annoying. I can take or leave Lucas Bryant, but he made a good match with Ashley Williams.  I liked that when Matthew and Kaitlin felt that surge of sexual attraction, they actually admit and knowledge that to each other openly. That is actually quite unusual for Hallmark couples to do. Usually, they just gaze soulfully or have an almost kiss which is not attempted again until the very end. The owner of the development company that had a signed contract on Kaitlin’s house, did something at the end for no good reason. It was weird and made no sense. Nevertheless, I could watch another one of these Five More Minutes movies with no hesitation whatsoever. It’s a good concept, and so far they have been well done.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

The Gift of Peace

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There is Hope

Although at the end of this movie, there is hope and expectation that the two leads, Brennan Eliot and Nikki Deloach will have a future together, this is not a romance. There is not even a kiss at the end. Good call. It is about how grieving people start healing and find a path forward out of darkness. When we first see Nikki she is struggling in her artist studio. She is very sad and has lost love for her art and inspiration. It has been two years since her beloved husband and creative partner died and she is still struggling. The story is told partially in flashbacks and we learn that she and her husband were committed Christians. When her good friend and manager reminds her of her annual Christmas art exhibition that she skipped last year due to her grief she knows she has to produce this year. She is finally persuaded to go to a grief support group at her old church. But as soon as they bow their heads in prayer, she gets up and leaves. Nikki Deloach was fantastic in this. You can feel her every emotion with every twitch, blink, gesture, and look. She finally tries again and her journey begins in earnest. Brennan Eliot as the kind-hearted leader of the group who is not as together as he seems is also excellent. All of the members’ stories are told and well integrated into the central plot in a very balanced and smooth way. They are all very involving, if not as heartbreaking as Nikki’s. We wonder why Brennan, who has also lost someone, does not open up and share along with the others.

We know from the flashbacks about her and her late husband’s strong Christian faith and mutual love. When she finally shares her story with the group, we learn her husband died from a brain tumor. While he was in the hospital, she was strong. It is she who comforts the others. When she tells the doctors that she knows he will be OK because she has been praying for him along with her whole community, it is heartbreaking. You can hear the calm confidence in her voice, but see the slight worry and panic in her eyes. When her husband dies, despite her prayers, she loses her faith and is full of rage.

I won’t detail her path back to believing in God and prayer, but it seemed very authentic. I will say that it involves sharing and helping others. This could be called a Christian movie, but though unapologetic, it is not heavy-handed. Unlike the Candace Cameron Bure movie on GAF (which I couldn’t resist checking out.) I didn’t feel like I was being sold to or taught at. It just seemed like this is the personal story of one woman’s grief and how her love of painting and her faith was restored. Take from it what you will.

Rating: 9 out of 10.

Five More Minutes

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No Beer, Trucks, Guns, or Jesus

I approached this one with a lot of misgiving. I mean, a story based on a country song? By Scotty McCreery? But to my surprise, it was pretty good. Nikki Deloach, who is good as always, is a dedicated Art teacher who is losing her job and is having doubts about her relationship with her boyfriend. She wishes she could have just five more minutes with her beloved late Grandpa who always gave her great advice.

When she goes home to celebrate Christmas(?) Thanksgiving (?) I don’t remember, she finds a journal written by Grandpa when he was a young man detailing his first lost love.  She gets together with an old ex-boyfriend, and they decide to try to find her. Or was that another movie, Christmas Together with You?  They’re already starting to run together a bit. At the same time, a young man shows up for a job at her store because he said her grandpa was going to hire him. He turns out to be a wonder and is the best employee ever. It’s pretty clear from the get-go that something spooky is going on. There are lots of clues, which I’ll keep to myself.

Sherry Miller plays Bonnie, Clara’s mom, who lost her husband about a year ago. She looks great. I always think of the actress with fondness because she was in one of my favorite TV romcoms, This Matter of Marriage, back in the late ‘90s when she was a young whippersnapper. Highly recommend. She has her own romance along with her daughter finding love with her ex, Logan, and dumping her current beau. I liked that Bonnie did not approve of the ex, who behaved badly dumping Clara when they were teens, and kept giving him the stink-eye. She came around though.

There were a couple of things I did not like. Despite both Clara and Logan being established as Hallmark paragons of niceness, they both behaved badly. Logan kept putting the moves on Clara even after she said she had a boyfriend. And Clara totally dumped Logan and canceled an invitation for the family-less guy to spend Thanksgiving (?) Christmas (?) with her family just because he was called back to active duty. This was really low behavior and hardly patriotic or compassionate. Also contrary to the Hallmark ethos.  The third thing I didn’t like was the under-use of Leanne Lapp who played Clara’s sister and a favorite of mine.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

December 22, 2021

Cranberry Christmas

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Hallmark Christmas Movie for Grown-Ups

This is a mature and well acted offering that explores what it takes to have a happy marriage despite the challenges. Nikki DeLoach and Ben Ayers were fantastic and have wonderful chemistry. They play a separated couple, who have to pretend to have a solid marriage because they are publicizing their small town festival which will promote their family business for a TV show. It was like they were really married and falling back in love. They were a perfect match. Nikki is so sincere in her delivery, you really believe that everything that comes out of her mouth is from her heart. The whole cast was great, except for grandma who was a little teensy bit over the top. Sorry Grandma. The script was excellent with humor, heart, and a few tender moments. And it managed to avoid most of the Hallmark set pieces. Even the big misunderstanding near the end was handled with maturity and aplomb. The challenges to the happy ending were complex and real. No phony silliness at all. A breath of fresh air.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

December 7, 2020

Sweet Autumn

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No Cliché Left Untouched

Soooooooooooo Boring. I’ll have to disagree with most of the reviewers here. I usually like Nikki Deloach and Andrew Walker. But Nikki had a weird hairdo and no opportunity to shine because of the dull script and Andrew was just meh in this one for the same reason. It all centers on the over-used-to-death plot of the successful woman’s having to return to her small town to run a business she inherited but has to share with a handsome man who she conflicts with. Lord, I almost fell asleep typing that. Throw in the obligatory festival and a frolic and there you have it. This one, however, is made worse by the dead aunt from whom she inherited the candy store (SWEET Autumn, get it?) reaching back from the grave by leaving cloying and hackneyed words of advice for the couple in order to bring them together. This was a lazy effort and unworthy of the talent.

Rating: 4 out of 10.

October 23, 2020

Love to the Rescue

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Started off Great but Kinda Fizzled.

This one started out great. I don’t remember Nikki Deloach being such a good comedienne. She was hilarious in some of the scenes. Michael Rady was a great foil for her, and the chemistry was good. Nikki played a free spirit type animator who has committed to staying away from romantic entanglements for the sake of her very serious daughter. Her daughter wants a dog and Nikki agrees because she feels her daughter needs to loosen up a little and a dog will help. Rady plays a government executive who is very anal retentive and buttoned up and also president of the PTA. Rady’s son is a bit of a dreamer and loves super heroes. To make a long story short, the two pairs decide to share a rescue dog which brings them together. They are real opposites and of course they clash and then attract. It was funny that Nikki’s daughter related to Rady more than her mother, and Rady’s son was closer in personality and interests to Nikki. I like that Nikki’s ex-husband was a good dad and good friend to her, and Rady’s girlfriend was a nice woman who realized first that they weren’t a good match. Unfortunately all of the laughs and romantic tension were on the front end of the movie. After the two became friends, everything kind of fizzled out. Still, it was still good enough to win an *8* from me.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

April 8, 2019

Reunited at Christmas

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Hallmark Actually Leaves Some Clichés at the Door

**spoilers**

Reunited at Christmas is not a typical Hallmark Christmas movie. I don’t know what got into those folks at Hallmark, but I hope we see more of these presentations that don’t follow the usual bone-tired formula. Not that it wasn’t predictable or anything or had a sad ending, God forbid. But they did break free a little bit. Briefly the family’s beloved “Nana” dies and her final wish is that her Son, his ex-wife(who she loved like a daughter) and their two daughters spend Christmas in the family homestead, which is now going to be sold. Our focus is on the daughter played by Nikki Deloach. She is a writer and has a serious boyfriend who is an anchorman. He accompanies her to the family gathering where he pops the question. She says yes, and immediately freaks out because she has abandonment issues(dead Nana and her former fiancé practically left her at the altar.) Believe it or not, steady city boyfriend does not get dumped for a local boy. Instead they work out their problems and resolve her doubts and fears. There is hope that the divorced parents just might get back together eventually as well. Nikki and all of the cast members do an excellent job. On the negative side, most of the movie consisted of Nikki moping around being indecisive and her father pining away for his independent ex-wife, who appears to have moved forward quite nicely without him. All in all this was a Hallmark Christmas movie that was a very mature and sort of realistic approach to a family at Christmas. No magic Santa’s, time travel, bad boyfriends, or failing businesses, or hate turns to love conflict. It was quite refreshing.**7 out of 10 stars**

November 26, 2019

A Dream of Christmas

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Another Hackneyed Plot Device, but…

Our heroine, Penny, (Nikki DeLoach) frustrated because her loving but frequently absent husband may not be home for Christmas, casually voices a random thought about how she wishes she had never been married. Voila! A busybody and eavesdropper behind her in line uses her Christmas Angel powers to grant her her “wish.” Except it is not a real heartfelt desire, it was just a momentary voicing of some mild frustration. She loves her husband dearly, and her husband is crazy about her. He is absent because he is a wildlife photographer, and it is now or never to catch the reindeer migration for his book, which is a mutual dream for the couple. She can no longer go with him because they decided she had to give up her marketing of his photos to get a paying job to support them until his business becomes profitable. And now she has to give a presentation that may lead to a big promotion.

Horrified and bewildered at her new life, she encounters the Christmas demon…er, angel again, but the cold rhymes with witch refuses to take back her thoughtless whim…er, sincere wish. It was nice to see Cindy Williams again, but the character she plays is really creepy, scary, and mean. I don’t think this was intended. I blame the director. She has the gall to blame Penny’s dilemma and tragic consequences (her happily married sister is now single and her children no longer exist) on Penny and then on God himself, refusing to see it was her grossly inappropriate and unasked for meddling that is at fault and it is her responsibility to fix all of the collateral damage.

Enjoying some of the perks of her rich and successful new life, Penny briefly flirts with just moving forward and forgetting her past. A very handsome new client wants to date her, she likes her VIP status, her important position and the work she does, and her Jaguar. Who wouldn’t be tempted? Luckily she and her husband never had children. So that is an important hurdle she doesn’t have to jump. Only two things are wrong. She misses her husband, and her sister is no longer a happily married mother.

It sounds like I didn’t like this movie, but I really did. It is based on a very weak premise, but Penny’s journey really is done well. Her flirtation with the client, who seems at first like a great guy, is tanked because she knows and feels like she is still married. She seeks out her husband, now a very successful corporate photographer, and sparks still fly. The chemistry between them is some of the best I’ve seen in a Hallmark movie. Andrew W. Walker, a Hallmark perennial, really touched my heart in this, as did Nikki Deloach, as Penny. Of course, all is settled in typical Hallmark fashion but this one had some intriguing qualities and even a few surprises. **9 out of 10 stars**

December 11, 2016