User reviews

I have grown tired of the Hallmark formula applied to every movie so this was a very pleasant change. Still Hallmark, but the tired scripts did a pleasant change up, and it really was a pleasant change. A very enjoyable movie, mystery and romance.

There were both a host of new characters, all likable, and a couple of old standbys, also very likable. Great scenery, so they must have sprung for a slightly higher budget, a good choice. Everybody loves a little mystery, some honest appearing suspense, and a happy ending.

Keep the changes coming and trash the worn out storylines that are totally predictable and boring.

This has many of the usual plot elements. Save the family orchard. Lady exec, Tess, who has an amazing assistant, up for promotion inherits half the estate. Quest to find hidden or lost family treasure. Tess had single mom and now is finding family she never knew. Male opposite, Damhniac, helps with the quest. Yet somehow it didn't feel like the same old same old. There is a bit more of a detective mystery than the usual quest story.

Meanwhile there is the relationship between Tess and Damh but it doesn't get as much screentime as a simple rom/com. Niall Matter and Rachelle Lefevre do have chemistry even if it's shortchanged for screentime.

The major relationship here was between the two sisters. That was, IMO, very well done, as was the gradual involvement of the lead's life with that of her extended family in the orchard, and her discovery of their history.

Niall Matter is one of my favorite actors in the Hallmark universe, but he was irrelevant here. If anything, I thought he should have gotten together with the sister, not the lead character. I suppose it was an obligatory part of a Hallmark movie, but in this one it wasn't necessary.

To the whiners who say that they don't like the inclusion of LGBTQ, get over it - they're a part of society now, and in this movie they were introduced as just a normal set of friends of the lead. Nothing was pushed, and they weren't pushed into the closet. Lots of Hallmark movies have hetero couples, and a few have gay couples. No big deal.

To sum up, an interesting movie with a non-threatening mystery, and romance was a side-issue.

IN A NUTSHELL: This Hallmark mystery was directed by Heather Hawthorn Doyle, and written by Jamie Pachino based on the book "The Apple Orchard" by Susan Wiggs.

The story is about Tess Delaney, who gets the surprising news from estate executor Damhnaic McAuley that she has inherited half of an apple orchard from a father she never knew and has a half-sister she didn't know about. When she visits the orchard and connects with her new-found family, she learns that the orchard is deep in debt. Using her knowledge as an antique expert, Tess and her half-sister work to unravel the mystery of their grandmother's "treasure" that could hold the key to saving the orchard. And, in the process, Tess ultimately finds a new understanding of herself.

THINGS I LIKED: The casting of the mother and daughter was pretty good! I thought the beautiful Rachelle Lefevre looked a lot like Nathalie Boltt.

Nice cinematography and drone shots.

There's a fun mystery to figure out.

I like that Hallmark movies don't always have female employees fighting and bickering. This is the second recent Hallmark movie where I've seen a boss portrayed as super nice to her employees and up for a promotion for a great job.

Empty refrigerators always make me laugh in movies.

We get to spend time in a beautiful apple orchard.

There's more to the story than just romance.

THINGS I DIDN'T LIKE: Hallmark was really going for the "diversity" award in this movie with storylines that include a pregnant lesbian couple, a Hispanic family with immigration problems, and a Holocaust story.

Why are the ladies in Hallmark movies always super uptight? Does Hallmark think that's how all single women are?

The CGI window views look super fake.

Super cliched dialogue.

There's a lot of exposition in less than 5 minutes.

Grape stomping is hilarious but seems super unsanitary, right?

Dumb dialogue like "Do you have something sweet like a dessert thing?" Maybe I missed it but it seemed funny to me that there was no discussion about why the apple orchard was going bankrupt. They never addressed the underlying causes. Instead, the characters spent a lot of effort trying to save it, but what kind of financial situation were they going to be in with the orchard once they saved it without solving the underlying problem?

The romance felt like an afterthought in the story, really.

TIPS FOR PARENTS: Spanish is spoken without subtitles.

A lesbian couple has a baby shower.

.

Best Points: The Actors: especially the leads- Niall Matter and LeFevre are excellent . Their difficult and sometimes impossible Jobs are to flesh- out and fill the holes in the underdeveloped script. .. a. Mystery of Family and hidden clues.

Weakest Points: Trying to develop a good and well written storyline in Hallmark's standard 1 1/2 hour format. Really doesn't work well here.

Many layers of the plot and well drawn inter-connection between characters - sadly never happen

Worth the. Watch? Yes, good actors and the location make it worth the short watch, but you leave wanting something more substantial.

Tess Delaney (Rachelle Lefevre) is a globetrotting high class art hunter who is too busy for a personal life. She inherits an apple orchid from her father who supposedly abandoned her at birth as told by her absent mother. The other inheritor is her newly discovered half-sister Isabel (Helena Marie). Damhnaic McAuley (Niall Matter) is the estate executor.

This is a Hallmark movie, but they're really pushing the romance that hard. The bigger story seems to be a family mystery turned treasure hunt. I am not overly interested in any of the plotlines although the mystery kept my interest. It's a mixed bag although Hallmark does not set the bar that high.

From the first couple of scenes, I knew, having read the book, that this Hallmark presentation, would be disappointing. What was the point of changing the banker's surname? Why the lesbian couple? In the novel, Tess's cluttered, untidy apartment shows her busy professional life while showing her lack of commitment to her personal life. Tess's back story should have been expanded. Magnus's back story was crucial in the novel, yet the film killed him off before we even met him. Placing the 'treasure' in the deceased Eva's possession is the sour icing on a rotten cake. Do yourself a favor and get the book.

I'm a big fan of Rachel Lefevre, the redhead beauty who plays Tess. I also like Hallmark vet Niall Matter, who plays Dominic. Rachel was in another solid Hallmark movie this year called Moriah's Lighthouse and Niall was in a really great Hallmark movie this year called Rip in Time.

This is NOT another cookie cutter Hallmark movie. It's an engaging lost and found story that was somewhat reminiscent of The Christmas Note and My Christmas Family Tree (2 great Hallmark movies that explored the emotional impact of having a complicated and incomplete family history).

The Secrets of Bella Vista is based on the novel The Apple Orchard by New York Times bestselling author Susan Wiggs and ties a key plot point about old historical items to the escape, by Tess' grandparents, from Nazi-occupied Denmark during World War II. Tess, unaware of this history, coincidentally has an interesting job as a high end art and antiques expert in San Francisco. She's presented as someone too busy to even eat. Just as I was getting annoyed with Tess, I realized the script had given her a believable back story of abandonment that explained most of her actions (with one glaring exception). I also found the explanation for the Orchard's financial problems to be surprisingly credible.

I was drawn in by the story and appreciated the careful plot details that made this a (mostly) believable family mystery. I cared about Tess and Isabel (warmly played by Helena Marie) and was grateful that this wasn't a story of scheming and back stabbing beneficiaries. In fact, Tess was unrealistically portrayed as too far on the other end of the spectrum.

Specifically, it's revealed at the beginning that she's inherited half of a big apple orchard property, home and business near Napa that she thinks is worth as much as $20 million. And yet she flippantly tells the banker she doesn't want it and is willing to sign it over to a newly discovered family member she's never met.

Really??

She's supposedly only 30 years old (which the radiant 43 year old Lefevre pulls off) and though she seems successful, how rich could she possibly be? And who just walks away from what seems like a huge inheritance? Heck, she could have sold her share and donated the proceeds to Ukraine War Relief. Her lack of interest in her inheritance was wildly unrealistic.

But that was just one of only a few off key notes in an otherwise entertaining and enjoyable movie.

Random Observations:

The growing (and wonderful) relationship between Tess and Isabel seemed believably warm and healthy for both of them.

I've heard the phrase "bankers' hours", but the banker in this movie really never seemed to work.

There's a bad outdoor green screen scene at the orchard that looks more fake than most.

There's a terrible, and terribly misplaced, song that plays over the pie baking scene with lyrics that include "we don't need money no, we don't need money for rainy days. We don't need anyone". Ugh. But the scene was cute.

I love Hallmark's increasing inclusion of LGBTQ characters without having their lifestyle being the source of any drama.

Hoping to see Rachel Lefevre again in another Hallmark movie soon.

The story had good potential. It has been turned into an awkward mess. The evident, painful, effort to include as many woke messages as possible has diluted and chopped the action with a series of unnecessary, intrusive cameos, more bothersome than the included commercials. The sequences are so out of place that even actors and actresses involved seem uneasy and appear phony. Of course, some of these thespians may be drab to begin with.

Possibly because of these foreign elements and diversions, the story does not run convincingly. The end result is a tale with uneven tones, wrong nuances, and questionable chemistry even between the main characters.

Hallmark has to decide whether to produce honest and good entertainment or lectures. It cannot be done on the same canvas. Too often in their recent productions, the lack of clear objectives translates into erratic and totally uninspired films.

7.7 stars.

I like a good mystery, this one was orchestrated well enough to keep us guessing just a little and doing a bit of nail biting, and then it all unravels at the end to a predictable climax. Yes it's woke, yes it's got some far fetched ideas about uber rare coins and holocaust survivors, and people dying in mysterious ways, and the secrets kept by several seemingly saintly people for no good reason. This extremely savvy woman and her equally savvy mother are the butt of the whole generational joke, but who is keeping score? I liked the film for the entertaining twists and turns. She speaks 3 languages? Right. He is a pilot, was in the navy, and has been to multiple countries, and is now a banker? Right. Her grandfather was a self-made orchard owner in Napa valley right in the heart of the best agricultural land on the whole planet and they can't sell the place? You mean they spent 20 million on cancer treatment? Ok, something doesn't add up.

The movie is entertaining, wokeness and illogic notwithstanding. What can I say, I've been suspense deprived for too long watching all these syrupy romances, it's nice to have a maudlin mystery for once.

Let's see, in the first thirty minutes we have pregnant lesbians, a cliche hispanic family, immigration problems, and a Holocaust backstory. That checks so many woke boxes, they must be going for an award.

Too bad, because there is a kernel of a good story here, with two sisters, various legal problems from an interesting family history, artistic family members, and a love story. The three lead actors are pretty good, although the others are less than meh.

Why is this so difficult? Keep it simple and tell the story without the distractions. The Hallmark machine is making few and far between good movies at this point, apparently losing its focus.

The good: female lead did a great job in this role. She was very believable and was quite subtle and nuanced. The actress did a great job providing the character with an emotional story arc. You don't necessarily like her character at first, but grow to sympathize with her. Frankly it was one of the best performances I've seen in a Hallmark film. The chemistry between this character and her half sister was also great.

The script was also very good. Generally had sharp dialogue and didn't get too bogged down in unnecessary exposition, which is something Hallmark does a lot.

The less good: Lead actor, who was good in Aurora Teagarden, was subpar here. His character come across quite creepy. This might be a script and direction thing as much as an acting one.

The other thing I didn't love was how a certain pivotal plot point regarding the farm and the lead female's role in it were written. Her reaction didn't really feel true to the character we had been introduced to. She should have been a lot angrier.

Overall this was a real nice film which resonated with me.

The novel, The APPLE ORCHID was a wonderful read but this movie tired to used just bits of it and to me it flopped! They could have made a small series of the novel and had something special. What a shame!

The back story of WWII was a very interesting part of the book as was Tess's meeting with the woman who told her the story. Hallmark tried to just make a quick romance and missed so much. If you liked this move at all, read the Apple Orchid and the and follow up novel, THE BEE KEEPERS BALL. Both really wonderful reads and you too will see how Hallmark really missed the MARK on this one. Lets hope they do better in the future.

I struggle to rate this hallmark film. I love Hallmark regular Niall Matters and Rachel Lefevre was just fine. I really liked that this was about an apple orchard (and not another vineyard) and I loved the main characters career around antiques...and all of the antiques shown (was that a Parker slag lamp on the desk? And I have that very same brass letter holder!).

The story was VERY loosely based on the Susan Wiggs novel The Apple Orchard. The main character, Tess Delaney, is up for a very coveted position acquiring antiques for the prestigious New York firm of Sotheby's. Meanwhile an unknown gentleman keeps trying to contact her...it turns out she has inherited half of an orchard and estate from a grandfather she never knew and surprise!...she has a half sister that inherited the other half. Then she discovers the estate is in financial trouble...enter the story of their grandmother whose wealthy Jewish family fled the Nazi's during WWII, possibly with some kind of treasure.

The base story was a decent one and could have been well done. Unfortunately, it was just ok.

The part I really didn't like...was the random lesbian storyline that felt out of place to the rest of the story. It's like the put it in out of requirement and made no effort to actually work it in seamlessly with the story. Thus it felt forced and awkward or as some reviewers have commented...like a moral lesson. No issue with a lesbian storyline, but I would prefer to see it done well.

I'm afraid I can't really recommend this hallmark film to loyal hallmark romantics like myself...or fans of mysteries, sorry.