Amy Groening, who played Kayla, a divorced pet portrait artist, was the best thing about this movie. She's such a bright, bubbly, attractive actress. I wish they'd put her in a lead role. I didn't really buy her friends to lover storyline (they didn't really seem like a match) but I suppose when you live in a town with only 513 people (per the Welcome to Gracious sign) there aren't a lot of options. That same limited population would seem to be challenging for her business model but hey, it's Hallmark.
I wanted to start with something positive because I really like Kristoffer Polaha and Marisol Nichols. I can't remember seeing a bad Polaha starring movie (Dickens of a Christmas was great) and Nichols was effective in the Holly and Ivy tearjerker (although I hated Christmas CEO). But this movie was a bit of a downer for me and not really that enjoyable to watch. And there were a number of things that were just off about it.
For example, the therapist played by Hallmark vet Pascale Hutton, really didn't give this couple any good advice. She cleverly noticed that they weren't "connecting" (great insight) but the best she could do to help them out was to tell them to go out of town on a vacation? They need a new therapist.
There were also quite a few extreme close ups that seemed awkward.
Separate bedrooms? Ugh. Why bother leaving town? It's bad enough that unmarried Hallmark couples never have sex but this married couple really needed to share a bed.
Why didn't they call a company like Safelight? They had nearby branches and could have had that windshield fixed in one day. They fixed mine in a couple of hours.
There's evidence that suggests the dangerous outside ornament was being purposefully dropped on cars. If so, that's messed up.
Why yell and whistle at your dog on a parade float? Do you want him to jump off?
Polaha's character really seemed like a guy willing to try and make the marriage work, but Nichol's character seemed Hell bent for divorce (blame the writer and director, not Nichols). It was all tied up neatly but, like I said earlier, these guys really need a new therapist.
There was one beautiful scene though- the one where they're in town in a large gazebo like structure that was all lit up with no one in there but them. That was lovely.
