A Winter Getaway (2021)

They're better in motion, I swear.

    Is this the first premiere showing I’ve done? Ah, no, actually first showed at the tail end of January, but close. I look forward to it pretending that all of 2020 didn’t actually happen.

    Holy shit, it opens on the exact same skyline shot as the last one. That’s some efficiency right there Hallmark. Also, since I can’t fit in in elsewhere, the director comes from a horror background and has the distinction of helming the ‘I Spit on Your Grave’ remake, so make of that what you will.

I see what you did there, Hallmark.

    Our lead works for a ‘personal concierge service,’ which is this universe means ‘make crazy shit happen for stupid rich people.’ At least this part acknowledges our current reality. She gets pulled in on a new client taking a ski trip in Canada due to the previous concierge suddenly quitting. His file is very light on details and lacks a photograph which is obviously a plot point except, y’know, the internet exists, so unless this is directly addressed will be a definite mark against.

    I’ll admit I know the basic premise, the male lead is actually just a normal guy who’s been gifted the trip by his rich friend, so him acting impressed by the amenities is fine, if a bit slapsticky, what I’m confused about is why he isn’t immediately making sure everyone knows he’s not personally rich, it’s not like they’d suddenly start treating him horribly. He’s also not putting on airs or anything, he immediately television-fixes her computer while on the flight (so must be a tech guy, even if he pronounced is cache’ like no one in tech actually does).

    They get to the hotel and after being shown the amenities he’s referred to as the owner of a huge company. He immediately gets on the phone to his friend who booked the thing and they figure that when the person he was working with left some wires got crossed and it’s an honest mistake, which I guess addressed why he didn’t tell people earlier. Apparently it was originally for the rich friend but last-minute business stuff made him unable to go so he gifted it to his friend he could get over a recent breakup. They decide it’d be fun for him to pretend to be rich, which I could see. As setups for future misunderstandings go it’s one of the better ones, I buy his reasoning.

    He apparently assumed she was going skiing with him and insists on getting her a whole ski outfit. There’s an insert shot of him signing for the clothes so I’m assuming this is going to be a thing for the eventual reveal. Turns out she can ski, which is nice. They have lunch and he asks about how she became a concierge. They have a nice little chat and these actor sell the not-terrible lines. Who wrote this? Hmm, someone clearly using a pen name, they have four credits to their name since 2020 and nothing else on IMDB. Interesting.

    They chat briefly about how he just had his heart broken and then head out on the town. They’re also starting to give each other Looks. There’s a scene at an art gallery where they’re mistaken for a couple and he goes with it, using it to gently troll her. That’s such obvious low-hanging fruit I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more often. They chat some more and she brings up how important trust is to her and his face is one big study of regretting running with this goof. This comes out as insisting that the next day they spend doing what she wants to do.

    Which turns out to be dog-sledding, so we get some nice scenery porn and doggos. Also more actual songs on the soundtrack, I’m wondering if this is something Hallmark started doing when these got so popular. He asks her more about herself and her dreams and they seem to be doing some actual bonding so let’s toss a coin: if this movie is trying to be ambitious within the confines of this genre either that night or the next day he’ll freely confess his deception to her, if it isn’t he’ll be outed by someone or something else and we’ll face the second-half conflict. Let’s flip this coin.

    So after breakfast with the Canadian resort equivalent of the downstairs staff they go curling. Sure. They’ve started almost-smooching as well. He’s about to tell her the truth then for reasons I can’t entirely parse ... doesn’t? She’d just given this little speech about how rich people are always claiming to be like everyone else but they’re just not and for some reason that stops him. After a late-night call to his rich friend he’s advised to just come clean so he apparently resolves to.

    Except again he doesn’t. It’s another reasonably charming scene at a microbrewery involving craft root beer and poutine that I would reasonably enjoy if the plot-anvil wasn’t hanging over everything. I suppose it’s like a ticking clock effect, the second the couple overcomes everything and declare their love the movie has to be over in like two more minutes so they have to kind of stretch things out before then. While walking afterwards they discuss her career plans and they come up with what passes in these movies as a solid business model. They again go to kiss and she brings up the no-romance-with-clients policy. He apologizes and they move on. Meanwhile back at the agency that signature for the clothes comes up and they notice it’s different than the card on file, which is dumb because since it was a gift the friend would have authorized him to use the card but apparently the coin flip from up above came back tails and this has to be at least a bit stupid [spoiler: it’s kind of addressed, apparently it was supposed to be handled by the previous concierge and was just missed].

    She gets told about this just before he comes by her room to confess and I get that these scenes are necessary but nobody buys that they mean anything so cast, crew, viewers, we all go on autopilot until they eventually get back together. Out of academic interest I’ll see how these two sell the scene because so far at least they’ve been a marked step up from the standards I’ve gotten used to.

    Eh, they were fine.

    They confer with their respective consiglieries, he with his rich friend and her with her mom who basically just point out that yeah, he lied, but it’s hardly the worst lie and pretty understandable and can they maybe just get over it already? Except then apparently the rich friend jerks her chain by telling their concierge service to keep her in town to plan what seems to be a fake party for our male lead which is maybe less forgivable. She apparently doesn’t seem to mind as he’s arranged a date that mirrors one of her favorite childhood memories. He points out that the no-dating clients policy doesn’t apply to him and she goes with it. I do like that he says he’s “falling in love” with her rather than just that he’s “in love” which her, that’s a big distinction that I’m happy this is making. They talk about starting that business they talked about and when she ruefully brings up the starting costs he tosses off that he ‘knows a guy’ and her face changes as it fully sinks in that he does. It’s a nice note to end on.

    This one was pretty good. The script had fewer than usual stupid hoops to jump through, the dialogue wasn’t awful, and the leads were pretty damn charming. The fact that she was upset he lied was understandable as was her forgiving him for it. I also liked that it ended with essentially the beginning of their relationship rather than at the end. I’ll echo the entire IMDB comments section by saying the music mix was way off at the very end but given the standards most of these operate on I’m pleasantly surprised.

 

Love on Iceland (2020)

Weird corner of the Arrowverse.

    We open on, sigh, the New York City skyline [actually Chicago], but at least The B-52’s “Roam” is playing. Interior of an office within which they’re recording something called ‘Racket Podcast.’ Is vlogging/podcasting the new architect or magazine editor? Our lead character is apparently a producer despite being pushed by her coworkers to host but is hesitant. Oh, will someone be pushed out of their comfort zone by love? The podcast is undefined but the guest goes on about ‘finding herself’ or somesuch in Iceland with our lead acting all enraptured by the non-specifics. What else has this actress done? Huh, some actual shows, ok.

    Apparently ‘ratings’ are down, as in this universe podcasting operates like tv networks with boardrooms and presidents and pitch meetings. Didn’t know it was so hard to grab MeUndies sponsorships. She’s complaining over lunch about how overworked she is and deadlines and, um, is this a thing when you run what is apparently a single audio podcast [it is later clarified to be a podcast network]? Her friend says she could take a vacation just after her boss put a time crunch on her, let’s see how they square this circle. Also I’m curious what her love interest is going to be doing in Iceland as he’s clearly not going to be a native.

    Ah, they’re getting the old gang back together to take the trip and he’s clearly one of them. Holy crap, Tommy Merlyn from ‘Arrow?’ We’re in trouble, I like this actor. He’s apparently a travel photographer and is constantly traveling worldwide, which nicely explains that. The rest of their friends can also apparently drop everything and go to Iceland at a moment’s notice, which must be nice.

    Our male lead must have a separate introduction later because after arriving in Iceland they take in a few sights and set up shop in their chalet. We’re also up to I think four jokes about the local language which you can cut that out any time you like, movie. Oh, speak of the devil, here’s that male lead showing up out of nowhere. Very clearly they were exes and he wasn’t supposed to be invited but the other friends didn’t know and I think I’m going to start digging out my vinyl collection to see how many B-52’s albums I have.

    During a spa trip it turns out they dated for three years and their careers took them apart. I can see how that would end up leaving lingering feelings. Less understandable is why they’re acting like awkward 16 years old about it but none of these movies are particularly emotionally mature. Their hosts at the chalet tell a nice little story about how they met and they trade Significant Glances.

    The ongoing theme is she is obsessed with planning while he’s more spontaneous. Not a bad contrast. She outplans the tour guide, he keeps wandering off to take pictures. This would get my highest recommendation if they accidentally fell in a crevasse or something and it turned into a hardcore survival tale.

    They start setting up their tour guide as a fake love interest and he seems nice so I hope he doesn’t get hurt in all this nonsense. She also starts reading about Icelandic mythology which I’m assuming is not going to get into necropants, which treat yourself to a quick internet search there, all sorts of edifying.

    We’re halfway through and he’s urging her to host the podcast idea she’s come up with, she’s urging him to take this teaching job in Chicago, they’re getting along and being all flirty, I look forward to the conflict that’s going to keep them apart for the next half hour or so. Ah, here it is: a job that he has to leave for in three days, cutting the Iceland trip short. He doesn’t immediately agree so I’m assuming he’s going to not tell her, she’ll start falling for him, find out about the job, and get all mad at him.

    ‘Roam’ is from the 1989 album ‘Cosmic Thing,’ which means I don’t have it on vinyl. I have a loose rule about only getting vinyl from the mid-80’s and earlier since by the time the 90’s rolled around everything was being mastered digitally for cd’s and it doesn’t make that much of a difference to my ears. I also much prefer their earlier work, as although I like ‘Love Shack’ as much as anyone ‘Dance This Mess Around’ is my jam.

    Her boss likes her podcast idea but doesn’t think she should host so our male lead decides they need to have her do some interviews to prove her chops. So they track down this random couple to interview because I guess people in Iceland have nothing better to do? They seem nice and it will shock you to learn there are parallels between their love story and that of our two leads. Then there’s a whole montage of interviews of couples and I apparently wasn’t joking about them having nothing better to do.

    Ah, he’s now telling her about the job offer. Good, I like when the movies aren’t completely stupid. Meanwhile the tour guide has asked to have a talk with her away from the group, I assume to ask about her friend with whom he’s been spending time, and apparently we’re going to just be doing a different stupid thing by having him misunderstand when he sees them together while he’s out taking photos. Maybe half right? I nailed the tour guide but when she gets back to the chalet the two leads smooch.

    Oh god, it’s a new, third kind of stupid. Our male lead overhears our female lead assuring her friend she doesn’t have any feelings for the tour guide, assumes it’s about him, and rushes off to go accept the job offer. You have nine minutes left, movie, you’re not fooling anyone. And instead of any kind of resolution to the misunderstanding he just changes his mind, comes back to her, and they smooch into the credits. C’mon, movie, if you’re going to pull stupid shit at least have the courage to follow though.

    Iceland is a pretty country and the leads were not annoying but basically the plot was a couple who reluctantly broke up in the first place getting back together when their careers finally align again. I’m torn between having entertainingly stupid love obstacles and having basically none at all. In a serious movie I’d love a set of mature conversations between adults about their trust issues but this has magic podcast networks and people who can jet to Iceland on like two days notice. The thing certainly seems like it was shot in Iceland so if you’re into scenery porn you should eat this up with a spoon but there’s very little there there, just basically waiting for two people to get back together who never really wanted to break up in the first place. Oh, and if you can get your hands on a decent vinyl edition of ‘Wild Planet’ jump on that, it’s an underrated classic.

 

The Convenient Groom (2016)

That is some odd posture, lady.

    Oh, that’s nice, we’re not opening in New York City but in some kind of harbor town. All right, movie, that’s one tick in your favor so far. Our apparent lead seems to be a relationship therapist of some kind that shoots her live (?) show in her living room with a big logo behind her featuring brainy glasses as the tagline “Just ... no.” I like that, at least. We are treated to shots of desperate- seeming women glued to their tablets and phones and drinking in her advice. I wonder if the man who eventually teaches her to not think so much and instead feel will be some kind of sailor or a woodworker? [spoiler: woodworker]

    Her advice seems to consist of identifying petty nitpicks as self-evident deal-breakers on a first date and telling women to ditch the man then and there. And the things she identifies really are slight annoyances, like an overly-technical coffee order or getting overly upset if someone spells your name wrong when you have a non-traditional spelling, but if you use those as deal-breakers you’ll never get more then three sentences into a date before it’s over.

    Next she’s strolling around with the guy who’s going to break up with her in a few scenes and hey, whaddaya know, they don’t get along so great: misunderstood humor, petty holdover arguments, is the therapist bad about her own relationship? I also would really like some clarification on what she calls her ‘career.’ Is she on YouTube, Twitch, part of a larger platform? Was was live or did they just not do a good job of showing the video being produced? I’m not saying there’s not an audience for this kind of online content but the logistics do matter a bit. Her assistant mentions how ‘her website’ is getting big which ... doesn’t mean anything.

    Her clearly eventual love interest is introduced as repairing her standing desk and it’s taking too long for her liking, so maybe not strictly woodworking but clearly handy-man and the theme is going to be she’s too fast and needs to be taught to slow down, which ties in with her therapy advice, which fine, decent enough. Also despite her loud protestations they clearly had a romantic history when they were younger. I will now stare at the ceiling and await the breakup scene. We’re at five minutes 24 seconds, I say it’s over with by nine minutes in.

    We’re actually past ten minutes now and it’s clear that he’s going to dump her because her blog and its fame is taking over their engagement announcement and their entire relationship and moreover he keeps trying to get her to acknowledge that he’s not perfect and she keeps not reading him correctly and for once I’m 100% on his side, she is just not right for him. Run away from the crazy, man. Also her assistant keeps forcing the issue and this movie would be 1,000% more interesting if she just ends up as an evil mastermind who has a full-on villain arc, just saying [spoiler: they get like halfway there but eventually it just fizzles, which is a shame].

    They start shooting the show and despite earlier more or less establishing it was taped they’re now live? Back to staring at the ceiling. They ‘lose the feed’ which isn't a thing unless she's sending this via satellite and the fiance takes this opportunity to break things off. Our actual love interest happens to be secretly listening in due to dog-related shenanigans. Also turns out the fiance was cheating on her which wasn’t set up and makes no sense and blunts the very real points he was making but I guess our lead can’t ever really be in the wrong.

    At least our actual love interest immediately tells our lead he overheard what happened, glad we won’t have to have a fake conflict over it, and then she goes back and ... oh, oh no, I just got the premise of the movie. Maybe I’m about to be proven wrong (the movie’s on pause right now) but she’s about to announce her fiance just dumped her and immolate her career and so the actual love interest is going to jump onto camera and claim to be her fiance. Such a stupid thing would never have occurred to me without that dumb, dumb movie title.

    Wow, whole fifteen seconds later and I’m right. Just a moment while I go break things.

    Ok, so apparently there’s a book deal on the line so they have to do through the motions of putting together a wedding to save her career. Dumb but serviceable. There are several scenes of him being amiable and her being miserable and the assistant being low-key evil. I would like to point out that when she goes over to his parents’ for dinner his younger, high-school age sister gushes that she and all her friends watch her show which, no, no you don’t honey, just stop.

    The following scenes are nice enough. There’s a sudden power cut so now she’s staying in his guest room, he starts pointing out her little foibles, they enjoy spending time with each other, basically they start dating and find they like each other, not groundbreaking stuff. One night they’re about to finally smooch when suddenly in a scene I really did not see coming the ex-fiance shows up and says they should get back together, which even in the context doesn’t make sense on any level. This causes her to step back from the fake-wedding stuff so ok, makes sense in a false-dilemma kind of way, I guess, but you’re lucky I’m grading these things on a curve, movie.

    Lessee, we’re less than twenty minutes from the end, that’s enough for the breakup to be announced, a ‘moving on’ montage, then something about maybe her dead mom reminds her of what he means to her? She’s mentioned a broken memento from her childhood a couple of times, maybe he fixes that. Let’s roll them bones and see what happens [spoiler: only got the memento right, I’m losing my touch].

    Okay, the ex-fiance’s girlfriend releases a video revealing everything and apparently this brings it all crashing down, which, to put it simply, is not how the internet works, randos post stuff all the time, but sure, movie, deny our lead even a tiny bit of agency.

    Her career now in ruins, apparently, he tries to convince her their sudden love is real, she blows him off and brings up that memento thing from high-school they’ve mentioned a few times but never bothered to explain, he stomps away. She then destroys the rest of her relationships in her misery, and where are you going movie? Fake fiance’s mom shows up and in very small words explains to our lead that differences and even fights in a relationship aren’t the end of the world. Then fake fiance releases a video explaining how it was all his idea and he liked her back in high school and this is like sub YouTube makeup drama stuff right here. He states he loves her and she rushes over and lookit that, happy ending.

    The complications and hoops in this one were just as stupid as in that royal one but at least they did the stupid stuff to themselves. The male lead was pretty good (he was Christopher on ‘Gilmore Girls,’ if that means anything), she had a tendency to mug a bit too much, and they have a couple decent side-characters so this wasn’t a complete waste. Everything involving social media was very “out of touch 50 year old writer” but that’s hardly that big a sin. Her emotional beats were simplistic but at least made sense: her parents constantly fought so relationships devoid of conflict were the only kind that mattered, that at least follows. The plot shenanigans were far more random than I’m used to and I’m torn between being annoyed at things coming out of nowhere and being pleasantly surprised at being surprised, I’m going to call that one a wash. I know I’ve only watched four of these so far but I feel pretty comfortable nestling this one right in the middle of the pack. Nothing stood out as either particularly good or bad and I’m likely to forget this one as soon as I watch the next one.

 

Love, Romance & Chocolate (2019)

Fun fact: she voices Zatanna a lot.

    First things first, I’m already annoyed by the lack of an Oxford comma in the title.

    For once it’s not the New York City skyline we’re opening on but some chocolate porn and oops, too soon, there’s New York. Our lead is some kind of career woman whose company has something to do with baking (spoiler: it never really does get defined although it is established she works for some kind of food magazine) who is off to Bruges in a week’s time for something. I thought she was shown learning German earlier but maybe it was Dutch? After establishing she’s good at baking she rushes off to meet someone for lunch. The man she’s meeting is very obviously about to break up with her so let’s wait to see how long until that happens. She walks in at two minutes twenty seconds, he breaks up with her at ... three minutes forty two seconds. Half of that time is her establishing her family’s connection with Bruges so we could be back in efficient script territory.

    She goes to Bruges by herself. While checking into the hotel the concept of the prince’s wedding is introduced. I guess this is the Belgian prince? I don’t think she’s going to fall in love with him, they would’ve worked that more obviously into the title, not to mention that’s a title that actually exists, but she’s going to, I dunno, enter into a baking competition for a part of the ceremonies? Is her love interest a Belgian rival she initially doesn’t like but has to join forces with at the fifty minute mark? I’m kind tossing random darts here, let’s see what happens.

    She’s doing some chocolate sightseeing, which I am perfectly prepared to believe is a real thing, and has a meet-cute at a stand with a guy she assumes doesn’t speak English. He clearly will and will tease her about it and at the speed with which these things move I assume we’re about half a scene away from that.

    Ah, because of the wedding they’re holding a competition to be the royal chocolatier. I’m revising on the fly, she wouldn’t want that job herself so she’s going to instead help the cute guy she just met for ... hmm, we’ll see what reason they come up with.

    Oh, the teasing is actually a scene and a half later, well-played movie. Turns out he owns the oldest chocolatier shop in Bruges and it’s becoming less clear what’s going to force them together. C’mon, movie, it’s been over ten minutes, set up your entire premise already. Which they start to do in the next scene, okay, he sticks with traditional recipes, she likes to experiment. I bet they’re going to come together in the end! If we get a scene of the prince wandering by and liking one of her recipes and that’s why they start working together I am officially going to kick up my feet and focus most of the rest of this on why you should use the Oxford Comma.

    Ah, the oldest shop in Bruges is having money troubles, that’s why he wants the gig. Oh, and his assistant is apparently pregnant and needs bed rest so our lead volunteers to help. All right, didn’t see that one coming. She justifies this by saying if she helps she gets to go to the palace, which apparently is a thing she wants to do. Fine, premise established, let’s see if this random shuffling of plot elements continues. It’s almost twenty minutes in and the couple isn’t even resisting their love for each other yet.

    So they wander around Bruges looking for ‘inspiration.’ They try chocolate from other shops and she info dumps the personal history we should’ve been shown at the beginning. They hit the ‘cooking as bringing unexpected combinations together’ metaphor that I just know I’m going to get thoroughly sick of. She decides to make up some her own own chocolates to show him and that ‘prince is intrigued by her chocolate’ theory is starting to come back to life.

    Her grandparents and their history in Bruges comes back up and she decides they need to dig up their history to learn how to put love in chocolate? Sure, movie, I’ll let you run a while with this. Although these leads have zero chemistry and you’re going to have to put in a lot of work to convince me otherwise.

    There’s a very minor subplot about a guy trying to buy the chocolate shop, there’s a scene where he gives our lead directions, and he’s listed, let’s see, fourth in the credits, so he’s the fake love rival, gotcha. Oh, and he’s super experimental with his ingredients, that’s a least a little interesting.

    Now with basically no prelude they’re going on dates and acting all awkward and flirty and I’m sorry none of this was really set up. It’s like they hit the forty-five minute mark and decided it’s falling in love time. They run into the fake love interest, he and our lead are perfectly civil, and now the shop guy is throwing a huge, judgy hissy fit that has her rightfully confused. We are at fifty minutes so I suppose it is time to set up a fake conflict but pffffft, this is weak stuff here.

    Now the prince is touring and they haven’t come up with their signature chocolate and what is going on here? I should not be confused by a script this simple. Oh, they’re just visiting all the shops, okay. And our leads actually have a conversation and get past the hissy fit, fine.

    They end up combining their talents and interests to come up with their entry, who would have guessed! They go to the contest, present their entry, and they’ll find out the winner the next night. And now blech, the misunderstanding, he goes to profess the love he suddenly feels, sees her having coffee with his business rival, throws away the flowers he was carrying like a drama queen, you have twelve minutes, movie, I’ll just be over here contemplating commas.

    The reason it’s called the Oxford comma (more generally the serial comma) is because the Oxford style guide is one of the few prestigious British style guide to insist on its use. It’s generally accepted as unnecessary or at worst confusing but it has its adherents, including myself. It’s the final comma in a list of three or more items, the one right before the ‘and.’ To me it’s both logical and balancing, I find its absence distracting and opens up useless ambiguity. Plus you get to be pedantic about commas, one of my favorite pastimes, even if I get it wrong as often as I get it right.

    Oh, right, movie. They passive aggressive at each other for a while and I just don’t care about either of them. They win, decide to hit pause on their idiot buttons and declare their love, we out. At least in this one the leads had actual characters, as thin as they were, and had wants, if badly defined ones, and eventually acted on them to come together instead of letting the plot do it for them. I didn’t buy them as a couple for a second but they were generally tolerable. I’m going to try very hard to find a movie for next time that doesn’t involve either food or royalty, let’s see how difficult that is.

 

A Royal Winter (2017)

Yeah, whole thing's about this awkward.

    Day two so might as well dive into the royalty subsection of Hallmark movies. I’ve surfed past enough parts of these movies to know that this is almost a genre unto itself. Let’s see how vague European royalty impresses.

    Second movie to open with aerial shots of New York City, this time Central Park and other recognizable landmarks covered in snow. I think I’m already getting the idea that New York equals driven career woman, we’ll see how that pans out. Oh, in the very first scene apparently it also means volunteer reader of fairy tales to children, all right, I’m on board so far. And now she’s applying for a job at a law firm and the people interviewing her express astonishment that she had the time to read to children and study law. Ok, get it now, young aspiring lawyer has to make a forced choice between the law she’s been studying and her true passion as a teacher. I’m assuming somehow the royal she falls for either has kids of his own or, I dunno, has an orphanage on the side? That part might need some finessing.

    And now the woman interviewing her gives essentially a villain’s speech about how if she wants this job it will be her entire life and she won’t have time for any frippery such as helping children. Woof, there’s efficient and then there’s blatant, what else did this writer do? Holy shit, two of The Cube movies and the direct to video sequel to ‘Stir of Echoes?’ I bet with far fewer rewrites than you would think this script could be turned into a horror flick.

    The next scene is at a coffee shop and she bursts out to a friend in 30 seconds exactly why she doesn’t want to work at a law firm and the reasons are completely understandable and well thought out and will now take around 75 minutes to be proven right by falling in love with a prince. I already miss Danica. Her friend responds to her outburst by saying she should go to Europe with her. I don’t understand the economics of these people.

    They’re apparently going to Calpurnia, described as ‘Southwest of the French Alps.’ Ah, so Monaco with another name. I suspect that’s going to become a pattern. And her parents are apparently paying, which sounds about right. She bounces between assertive and defeatist very quickly and with no emotional transitions. I hope the royal is at least interesting.

    I’m trying not to include many screenshots of these since they’ve been made fairly recently and to decent standards but no: this is not believable in the least, thanks for trying movie.

You go back to matte painting school and learn to do it right.

    Now we have our prince, he’s getting ready for a coronation with apparently the queen still alive which, all right, I’m sure that’ll be gone into, and he’s practicing some sleight of hand. He seems ... fine. The queen is unpleasant and loads him with a chaperon until the coronation, played by a much more charming actor who, if this movie was interesting at all, would be the eventual actual love interest, but I have few hopes.

    Their meet-cute is him running over her hat on a motorcycle, driving back around and snatching it from her, buying her a replacement and giving it to her after he stalks her, then stealing her watch? Then he asks her to dinner when she’s very not interested? See, easy horror rewrite.

    We then cut to some royal stuff (trade deals are mentioned a couple of times, I’m guessing an arranged marriage for money is the fake crisis in the last third [spoilers: no]), he stresses he’s not his dad, he’s not interested in these old customs, unless he abdicates at the end I don’t care (spoilers: no). I suppose there’s more set up to get a commoner together with royalty than fixing up an old inn but I don’t really like either of these people and I’m starting to tune out of scenes. Plus the dialogue sucks and everything is so on the nose. They go on a kinda date and he keeps pretending like he’s not a prince and getting the citizens to play along and eventually she’s going to get upset and accuse him of lying to her and she won’t be wrong. Also where’s that chaperon guy? He’s just straight up defying the queen.

    Supposed romance ensues. Then she finds out he’s the prince, like she was bound to do, and believes all the tabloid stories about him instantly, so now I actively dislike both of them. I think I’m going to ruminate on how stupid the name Calpurnia is for the next several scenes.

    Plot points: the prince runs a foundation for needy kids (close enough to an orphanage, I suppose), she forgives the deception, she goes to dinner at the palace, it doesn’t go great, they go for a walk and he expresses doubts about being king, they smooch and get snapped by the paparazzi and now it’s a whole thing. Then the law firm offers her the job and it turns out the queen arranged for it to get her out of the country and I continue to not care about these two.

    Ok, we’ve reached a plot point now where I’m actually angry at this movie. Throughout the story the royal has kept his kid’s foundation a secret explicitly for their sake, she suggested telling the papers to improve his image and he instantly and emphatically rejected it, stating he’s keeping it secret from even his mother. After a single job offer they’ve both given up and gone all mopey while each still telling the other to ‘be yourself’ despite refusing it themselves and after one last call between them that ends in emotional passive aggressiveness instead of either of them just growing a spine and declaring an intention she arranges for the queen to find out about the kid’s foundation? No, movie, no. This is a lead who whipsaws back and forth between emotions and is constantly apologizing for saying things she thinks others don’t want to hear and you’re going to play this as a heartwarming move on her part? Fuck. You.

    So of course this works and the queen’s heart grows three sizes and she’s going to let him be the kind of king he wants to be and why is emotional consistency at all important in a script? But our lead still is too scared to not leave and fully intends to run away, love a main character who’s an emotional coward. The queen admits to her she got the law firm to offer her the job and then offers her another job running the royal’s foundation and isn’t it great when our two leads get to be passive and their happily ever after gets arranged for them? The coronation happens, then smooch, the end.

    I hope the other royal-themed movies are better than this one. Maybe the plot hoops you have to jump through to get the American with the European royal take up too much time to have decent dialogue and interesting characters. There was zero spark between the leads, no depths to any of the supporting characters (have I ruined myself by starting off with Boxleitner as the third main character?), and everything just kind of arranged itself into a happy ending without the leads ever having to make any actual effort. Oh, and a bunch of stuff like the queen still being alive, the prince performing sleight of hand, they never pay off. The sets were fine if a bit shoestring, the direction was unnoticeable, but the script and performances were just so weak. I expected better from the writer of ‘Cube 2: Hypercube.’

 

Wedding Bells (2016)

You can't fool me, movie, that's not Danica McKeller on the left.

    We open in New York with Danica McKellar as a fashion designer under stress. This is established with ruthless efficiency in less than a minute with: shots of the New York skyline, a terse phone conversation, a crumpled dress design, and our main character having to be reminded about a bridal fitting. I’m fifty seconds in and at the least I can commend this movie on its efficiency. She’s then established as the maid of honor in an upcoming wedding and there are a couple of lines about how she needs to eat. We’ll see if that comes back up.

    During the dress fitting she firmly states, “Not everybody needs a guy to live happily ever after.” I assume the entire rest of the movie will be proving that statement wrong. More food talk as they all go to dinner, so the romantic interest must be a chef. Ah, I see, two career professionals not interested in dating are involved in their friends’ wedding, are reluctantly paired, solve probably marriage hi-jinks, and fall in love. One check of IMDB later ... yup. I do lose points for not predicting that plot shenanigans take them out of the city to a small town inn but this is early days, I’ll improve on predicting the entire plot in, lemme see, two minutes and twenty three seconds. Oh, and I know the main character names now, Danica McKellar is Molly and Kavan Smith is Nick. Bruce Boxleitner is Charlie, and I only care about his character name because he’s played by Bruce Boxleitner.

    I think the game I’m going to play with this one is which side of the couple I like more. The edge in these is always going to be on the woman’s side, let’s see how much they tip the scale. Right now I’m neutral, we’ll see who annoys me first.

    Oh no, Nick has a square head and looks like showkiller Ted McGinley. Welp, Danica's won this one. That didn’t last long

    Officially getting annoyed at the married couple, and I’m normally not on the side of the anti-food snob but the food being served is pretty awful sounding. And then wow, less than five minutes and we have our first plot point: the bride’s family has lost a ton of money and suddenly the wedding is in jeopardy. So far this is more a rapid-fire skit than a movie. What’s this movie actually going to consist of, just meandering scenes of the couple falling in inevitable love?

    Nick was Lorne on Stargate: Atlantis, that’s where I know him from! I hated that character!

    While trying to figure out wedding stuff back at the couple’s apartment Nick catches Molly grabbing a snack and snits about how she didn’t like his food, which, sorry, your fault, dude, and also maybe read the room? He better have a dead puppy story if I’m not going to hate Molly settling for him (spoiler: it’s actually a dead mom story).

    Turns out Nick’s restaurant is closing as an investor got caught up in the same Ponzi scheme as the bride’s family, Molly says they may as well use the food that would otherwise go to waste to cater the wedding, Nick’s dad owns a run down inn, and we have a full premise: our two leads will throw together the wedding for their friends who I predict will have a break up scene at ... I’m watching with the commercials cut out ... sixty-five minutes in.

    They’re off to the Berkshires, conveniently forgetting that Molly had a huge deadline she was already behind on Fake late crisis he has to rescue her from? (spoiler: nope, it is occasionally brought up but ends up not being a real problem). Nick and his dad have some tension, wonder how Molly’s going to be the key to fixing that.

    I would like to point out that characters keep talking down this inn like it’s terrible but it is just gorgeous, the worst thing I can see is some old drop cloths. There’s even a significant shot of a piano that I’m sure will come back up. So far all the characters are coming off just fine, even Nick’s had a few decent moments, but I’m rapidly going off the bride. She’s the city girl who doesn’t like all this country nonsense and it’s clear the movie is tilted against her hard but I’ll admit the manipulation is working on me.

    The bride and groom skedaddle for the night for plot reasons which to me holds the promise of more Boxleitner, which I’m fine with. Left to their own devices our two leads do a decent job during dinner in the kitchen establishing their childhood traumas and how their parents issues caused their issues, and if that seems reductive that because it in but for a romance like this it works fine.

    After some decent and charming scenes we have to introduce conflict: Molly wants to do up the inn all classic-like, Nick wants to modernize it. I look forward to their eventual blending of styles. Oh, shit, that’s the mandate handed down in the very next scene by the bridge and groom. This script is all about progression. What else has this writer done? Oh, a ton of Hallmark movies? Hmm.

    As predicted we meander through some bonding/promises of romance scenes. Danica and Kavan are selling these pretty well. I don’t know that I buy the spark of romance but they seem like perfectly nice people getting along just fine. I don’t buy the moment where they supposedly invent the concept of fusion cooking out of thin air but it’s nice enough watching them play the scene. I do like them a lot more than the supposed bride and groom, which again I acknowledge that the manipulation is working.

    Some more scenes of charm then a fairly straightforward speech from Nick about cooking that involves bringing together ingredients that you wouldn’t think would work but do and jeez just fall into bed already. I’m guessing it’s a rule that they couple can’t bang before declaring they’re in love but we’re almost fifty minutes in at this point and any actual people would just go to town on each other.

    The bride and groom show back up, tensions aflame, and we have mini bachelor / bachelorette party montages that tick many, many gender stereotype boxes. The bride and groom now have seven minutes to meet my break-up deadline and I’m starting to get nervous.

    Nice little touching scene between Nick and his dad. Boxleitner brings the tears.

    Ooh, ooh, fight between the bride and groom at the rehearsal dinner and they take off to fight at ... sixty-five minutes and 41 seconds! Bam, nailed it!

    While cleaning up in the kitchen Molly and Nick admit they doubt the couple is actually in love which … guys? Was this not brought up before? After several aborted earlier kisses they finally smooch whilst talking about love and they seem like a perfectly nice couple who would enjoy a few months of serious dates but if this ends with this wedding turning into theirs I will flip many tables.

    I have now scrolled ahead and I’m half-right in way that might be acceptable.

    The bride and groom wait until all the guests are assembled and the music starts to announce they’re not going through with it? Man, fuck these guys. After the wedding Molly and Nick have such a perfunctory fight about whether or not their feelings were just a result of being stuck at the inn, maybe they won’t see each other again, I don’t care I’m checked out until the end now, although he does pop the question way too fast after seeing her again. Jeez, Hallmark, dating can be romantic as well.

    So their eventual wedding is a copy of the one the other couple bailed on, which is how I was half right. It’s an earned enough ending, with the former bride and groom the maid of honor and best man and all the previous setups ticked off the list of payoffs.

    I have a slight prediction going forward: any of these movies, in isolation, are perfectly fine, can even be charming, but in their sheer bulk may eventually overwhelm. Take this one: I can see why Danica McKellar made a name for herself for doing these and Kavan Smith is a much better romantic lead than I would have thought, and of course having Bruce Boxleitner wandering around the edges of scenes is always a plus. The script is tight as a drum, the sets and cinematography are basically porn for the intended audience, and the direction and editing are efficient and get out of their own way.

    So this one was a nice fluffy little souffle of a movie, but when you have night after night of souffle after souffle and they keep hitting the same beats over and over and it’s variations on the same three stories it’s going to slowly but surely turn into something maddening. So congrats to this movie for being first and getting to not be compared to any of the others.