oldmrmablehall

This is the worst male lead in any Hallmark movie I've seen, and possibly the worst Hallmark movie I've seen.

The male lead is mean and openly looks down on women throughout the whole movie. He's just awful.

The movie doesn't really portray this as a major fault (it feels more like a minor misunderstanding, on about the same level as the female lead not really knowing about football). At the end, there's some attempt at an explanation/resolution, but he doesn't really seem to change. The movie seems to reinforce a lot of stereotypes about women, too.

The football puns are also incredibly off-putting. There are so, so many, and they're so uncreatively shoehorned into the script, that they're physically painful (even as someone who likes puns).

I wish I had given up on this movie.

The script is a hot mess and feels more like something out of a soap opera than a Hallmark movie.

So Charlotte has left James at the altar twice. Any reasonable person would say that this is points to a massive issue in their relationship that will take time to address. The movie actually backs this up, because it shows us that James has trouble setting boundaries with Charlotte and that Charlotte has a fear of commitment. It also tells us that Charlotte's fear makes her so anxious she breaks into hives and feels faint. This is the point where Charlotte needs counselling, and where James and Charlotte need premarital counselling.

I asked the people watching with me, "Are we supposed to want them to get together?" multiple times. Even when I was rooting for the couple on an individual basis, the movie failed to convince me this relationship was a good idea.

While it's novel for a Hallmark movie to have a plot that couldn't be solved with one conversation, the movie also treats its central conflict like it's relatively inconsequential. The first act sets up this major conflict while the second and third act try to resolve that conflict by convincing us that the problem isn't that big of a deal (while still repeatedly referring back to it, and adding in a bunch of convoluted other things).

Major props to Jen Lilley. Lilley does everything she can to make Charlotte a likable everywoman who's in over her head. Unfortunately, she can't change the fact that the script makes Charlotte do really manipulative things (the rest of the actors similarly do their best with this script, I think they're all pretty solid).

How are they getting all of the wedding guests to come back? Why are their friends so supportive of this obviously dysfunctional relationship? How do they afford to have these multiple weddings? This movie is truly amazing.

Also, massive artistic licence when it comes to how allergies work, to the point of really really downplaying their severity (or maybe even reality). If it hadn't been so ridiculous I probably would have found it offensive.

tl;dr: Skip this unless you're in the mood for a hate watch.

I didn't make it past the tech episode.

The show was fun and a tinge absurdist at first. Willman seems to have enough showmanship to make a show without resorting to "social experiments" of the completely unscientific, nonethical variety (the kind that are churned out on YouTube on the daily). But at least in the tech episode, that's what he does.

I won't spoil what actually happens, but he mocks paranoia (rather than viewing it as a symptom of mental illness) and exploits it. At one point he tells someone "your doctors are under control of the government," and doesn't seem at all bothered when someone tells him "I won't be getting surgery any time soon." Great job, now these people won't get medical care if they need it. Then Willman says he's surprised that no one "called BS" on any of it (and presumably many people refused to get into the van), even though one of the people he's tricked has been skeptical throughout, right up until the point where Willman convinced him.

It still frames this as a totally okay thing to do. It frames paranoid people as worthy of scorn rather than people who likely need medical help, and who certainly don't need someone using their problems as a way to churn out content.

I am not a huge consumer of teen romance movies, so I only really turned this movie on because it was there, but this movie sucked me in from the beginning.

Pros: I was rooting for the characters very early on, and I was rooting for them as a couple pretty much the whole time. I found them believable, and I found their conflict made sense. The humor is down to earth and not predictable. Uzo Aduba and Christina Hendricks both did a fantastic job with really layered characters, and I loved their plotline with their respective kids and with one another.

Cons: Most of the problem is in the last act, but I will attempt not to spoil.

The story wants us to root for characters who say some unkind things about the protagonists (and who don't really interact with them).

The last part of the story feels like it relies on us not knowing how debate works (I don't) and finding it a little weird.

It seems like the movie tries to sell us on the point that making arguments with "feelings" (I think someone actually says "feelings over facts") is better than evidence, which is an odd point for the movie to want to make anyway, but it feels kind of deceptive since we never properly hear an argument given using evidence (because of the whole talking quickly thing). Ultimately, this plotline feels forced and has no real bearing on anything else.

Overall, though, this was a really enjoyable movie.

Watch if you're in the mood for a rom com with genuinely good characters. Skip if you're a fan of debate, or if you don't want to watch a movie that doesn't quite know what it's trying to say.

You know how people say about musicals "oh, it's just a bunch of singing for no reason?" This is that, but dancing and violin.

First, the pros: The movie was visually very nice (except for the choice to include strobing lights, which people should really stop doing). The dance sequences were amazing and fun. The climax involved a plot point I didn't see coming. The characters of the hip hop group are great (especially Pop-Tart). The protagonist is likable. There's this whole Fame vibe going on with the Manhattan conservatory. Jane Seymour is in it.

Cons:

Johnnie is terrible, and at no point did I want Ruby to end up with him. The movie wants to give us dark and brooding, but instead he either : 1. is outright rude to Ruby 2. Comes on EXTREMELY strong, in a very creepy way. They also have no chemistry. The lead dancer in the troupe, Hayward, has more chemistry with Ruby in the few minutes they're on screen together than Johnnie and Ruby do in the whole movie, to the point that I briefly rooted for Hayward and Ruby to kiss.

The dance sequences are all long and basically don't move the plot, at least one lacks explanation (although to some extent the inexplicability was something that kept me going). This movie has very little plot.

The whole plot with the roommate, Jazzy, is never really explained or settled (were we supposed to take that whole thing at face value? That ending felt way too neat, in real life there would definitely be an underlying reason why she did what she did). The movie couldn't quite keep up with the amount of characters it had.

There's a point where two women giggle and squeal and hit each other with pillows, which... look, I haven't met every woman in the world, but grown women who have just met usually don't behave this way.

Watch if you want to watch some really cool dancing, skip if you want to watch a movie for the plot.