Someone I know and respect told me she really enjoys Hallmark Channel movies, so I thought I'd check out the cable guide and try one. I'm a big movie buff, so it isn't always easy to please me, but I found "A Summer to Remember" to be a delight.
Catherine Bell excels as Jessica, a widowed physician who is too good at her emergency-room job for her own good. She has always yearned to return to Fiji, where she'd honeymooned, and, despite the fact that her best friend will soon be giving birth, she heads to the island with her teenage daughter Ava (Samantha MacGillivray).
According to notes on imdb, this movie was actually filmed on Fiji, a tropical paradise some 1,300 miles from New Zealand. And it certainly does dazzle here. The movie seduces the audience, just as it does the overworked and frazzled Jessica and her socially withdrawn daughter.
It isn't long before Jessica has caught the eye of beyond-buff resort co-owner Will (Cameron Matheson), a Tennessee native who, unlike Jessica, visited the island one day and stayed -- "This IS home," he tells her.
And, in what is perhaps Hallmark-movie style, the couple gets to know each other the old-fashioned way, by talking, doing fun activities together, and delaying even a first kiss until the final frame. Author Steve Harvey ("Think Like a Man, Act Like a Woman") would approve.
Along with its exquisite backdrop , this film features as its centerpiece a traditional luau, complete with hula, chanting, and flaming lights.
Sure, this dewy-eyed film may be highly unrealistic. Will had previously wed a resort guest and it hadn't worked out. What happened, and doesn't it bear examination before Jessica chucks everything and heads to the Southern Hemisphere? And isn't it possible she'll tire of a surfer who may not own even one book? The movie doesn't go there.
And perhaps that is best. "A Summer to Remember" is a wake-up call to pursue one's dreams while it's possible -- a dazzling reminder of one of life's great truths!
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