Format: Hallmark
Viewing: First
Director: Jonathan Wright
Job: Manhattan-based Realtor
new skill: talking to peasants
Man: Carlo Marks
Job of Man: Chef at B'n'B
Goes to/ Returns to: Goes to Vermont
Event: MapleFest/ MapleFest ball or some nonsense
Food: Maple syrup
I watched this in January, before I committed to the Chabert-a-thon, and forgot about it immediately after watching it, but saw it pass by on Hallmark and was like "oh, right. That one."
This movie was bad and I didn't like it. There are two male leads, and both characters are terrible humans who suck. The jury is out on what kind of human Chabert's character is, but she's dressed very smartly.
Chabert plays a born-and-raised Manhattanite who is dating a Manhattan guy who sucks. They break up because she works too much/ is completely inconsiderate of her boyfriend over and over, apparently.
Mad that she's been dumped, she joins with best-pal Fiona Vroom, and they go to her father's BnB in Vermont at the height of MapleFest. AND WHO AMONG US HASN'T FOUND LOVE AT MAPLEFEST?
Her father had been a big-deal real estate guy in NYC, but after Chabert's mother passed has slowed down and re-married to Rebecca Staab (who this viewer knows from her role as a deductress of viable but older gents on Superman and Lois). It turns out Chabert and her father have some tension about him selling the family apartment after her mother's passing, and leaving town to live in Vermont. She's kind of mean about it to him, but they've saved any discussion of this gigantic topic for the movie instead of when it happened.
Enter Man, a fancy-lad chef who cooks only with the trendiest ideas and ingredients (and loves maple syrup like I love coffee). And it's kind of here where you realize Chabert must be an okay actor, because he's a block of wood (in this movie) and she's still doing her thing, taking him along and trying to get some energy into the scene. They're supposed to have an enemies-to-lovers arc, but the script just makes both of them seem like incredible assholes for the first half of the movie.
It turns out, by coincidence, that her ex-boyfriend is at her father's BnB with a new girl. Somehow, they all decide this is not a problem. However, to make the boyfriend jealous, she convinces the chef to pretend to be her boyfriend, despite the fact they were about to stab each other mere moments before over whether farm-to-table was worth it.
As payment, she says she'll use her powers as a realtor to get the cartoon farmer nextdoor to sell Man his land so Man can grow his vegetables right there.
Look, even in my Hallmark movies, I need *some* reality to leak in, and this ain't it. Clearly her dude was cheating on her, and she looks now like she's just jumping at the first warm body that came into view with her goofy scheme. But the movie starts trying to bend time and space like Chabert has the Infinity Gauntlet in order to make it make sense - now saying "it's been enough time". But it hasn't been.
Is this stupid? Yes.
The script is the place where you can fix so many of the things that make a movie stupid. For example - the entire broken premise of the movie, which is "my ex is here, staying at my dad's BnB with a new girl" doesn't need to be what happens. He can be at the other BnB next door or down the road. Or: We'll pretend it's fine despite the fact it's been 3 days since we ended our very long relationship and you're clearly now boning this lady in my dad's house. Or, My dad, who is probably protective of me, and sensitive to my pain, is insisting on saying nothing. By the way, somehow the ex never once thought to check to see if the inn where they're staying is owned by my dad, despite the fact I'm public about hating my dad for selling the condo and moving to Vermont to this town to set up a BnB.
It's... bad. And it's all fixable. Yes, once you're on set, there's no time for the fixes. But when you're writing things, you can un-Sideshow Bob your script with a few passes. Instead, somehow they mounted a full production to film a script that feels like it was written by a committee or someone who kept suffering new bouts of amnesia while writing it.
It is also true, the male leads are not Hallmark A-Listers, and I assume that budget went to Chabert to ensure Hallmark got eyes on the movie.* I don't want to be mean, but there's a hierarchy, and these fellows are not at the top of the ziggurat. And it does help when Man is matching Woman's energy.
The event they keep returning to (MapleFest) is supposed to be one of those homey Hallmark festivals, but they filmed it in Vancouver in the pouring rain, and so put the thing inside a barn, so the event seems small and dumb, like an elementary school carnival.
Thanks to the rain, Chabert has to navigate muddy fields in her 6 inch heels. The writing makes *everyone* in the movie a jackass. The primary food obsession is with maple syrup, but they kind of keep showing syrup the color of Mrs. Buttersworth, and even I know that is not legit syrup from the Northeastern US. And, my god, Vancouver looks nothing like Vermont.
There's a Valentine's Day dance, and love is found. Also, her brother, who I kept forgetting was a character and was surprised to see him every time, hooks up with Vroom off camera.
I don't think anyone did Chabert dirty, exactly. She's fine. But it's a sloppy, sloppy movie. And that's hard to know when you're running onto a set and just delivering these 2-3 pages of lines and then going back to your trailer.
Look, I know Hallmark has to hit certain beats, but they need to also make sense. And the trick to so many of these scripts is to have conflict and not do it by mistaking someone's bad behavior for stubbornness or quirkiness. Chabert can try to sell it, but they just leaned way too hard into the two leads not liking each other, and for dumb as hell reasons.
* My reading of Hallmark reddit of late has also taught me that there is a fairly substantial Chabert bias that seems to have kicked into overdrive since a Hallmark exec was quoted as saying Chabert was too old to be in movies finding love.
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