Country at Heart

My wife and I have watched over 130 Hallmark movies, and this was one of the best we've seen in a while. Nice original music, great acting, good chemistry between all the actors. Nice work Hallmark.

I am a Niall Matter fan and a Jessy Schram fan so this had a little bit more going for it. Add a plot that is a bit off the usual template, and it should have been a big winner. It wasn't. But it was definitely above average. The Lucas Bryant plot line was interesting and added a bit of suspense. Was he going to be even a bigger jerk than he started off as, or would he turn over a new leaf? An 8 star and above Hallmark, for me, is one I will watch again. This did not earn that 8th star. Perhaps it was the lack of humor. Lack of focus? Lack of a really bad villain or real charm in the characters. The characters were lack-luster. Not talking about the actors.

And one more thing. Jessy is a TERRIBLE singer. But I seem to be in the minority opinion there. When she was doing her audition, I thought they were making her bad on purpose for the plot. But nope. Niall wasn't great either, but he wasn't really supposed to be.

One of my on-going gripes about the Hallmark movies is they rely so often on some ridiculous misunderstanding because the characters never take the time to actually talk, or more importantly, listen to each other, unlike real life, and then story feels completely contrived and way too emotionally immature for people who are supposed to be grown-ups. This movie though actually goes to the trouble of making sure every character tells the others exactly what's going on in their head and even bothers to ask questions of the other characters to learn the truth, which is what real adults do. The male leads are even written to be complex instead of one-dimensional, where both are sometimes in the right, and sometimes in the wrong. In the end it's a well done movie script that is refreshingly honest. Even the love story portion is almost secondary to the story itself, which is an amazing departure from the norm. Ultimately Hallmark moved away from some of the same old cliched tropes and plots to write something that was new and enjoyable to watch beginning to end.

This movie had a great story, great actors and terrible writing. I so wanted to like this one but the movie didn't flow and the conversations were awkward most of the time.

Woman returns to her hometown but.... doesn't open a candle shop or a bakery and big plus....Wait for it.........it's not Christmas either! Watchable but still predictable. There's far worse out there