Chabert Watch! The Color of Rain (2014)

Watched:  04/05/2025

Viewing:  First

Format:  Hallmark

Director:  Anne Wheeler

Job:  Church school admin

new skill:  widow

Man: Warren Christie

Job of Man:  I don't know if I ever figured that out

Goes to/ Returns to:  Stays in place

Event:  Christmas pageant

Food:  Italian, also, what other people bring by

So, I'm rapidly running out of Chabert Hallmark movies that are not holiday-themed, and I'm not sure I'll be diving into Christmas movies any time soon.

I don't know what was going on at Hallmark in 2014, or if this was a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie or what.  The Hall of Fame movies tend to be a little closer to regular-ol-movies as they originally aired on network TV, often on Sundays, but this was likely always on the cable channel.  The Color of Rain (2014) is based on the real life of two families who each was dealt a blow by cancer, each side losing a spouse, and then the two remaining spouses meeting and falling for each other.  And the resulting side-eye they get from their support structures.

I guess I'm basically shocked that this movie made its way to Hallmark, because it's sort of the opposite of the usually marshmallow fluff comfort treat that the network is known for.  Instead, it strives to show how people going through a spousal death and in the throes of grieving really are feeling and dealing with day-to-day life - and it's not a rose-colored version.  As both families have kids, they require daily care as well as the emotional support needed when you lose a parent - and that can include the kids just flipping out.  Man in this movie is angry with God, and this is a movie about good, church-going folks with the pastor as a supporting character and the center of their lives seemingly the church and its attached school.

Chabert's character had three years of knowing her husband was sick and had already taken on everything, but Man's character loses his wife abruptly to cancer, and is utterly unprepared.  The connection comes as Chabert is kind of the only one making sense to him in the wake of his wife's passing.

The movie did leave me to ponder how, if you're part of a certain income bracket, and attend the same church and have kids the same age, and already share the same interests, these two were already 50% of the way there when they meet.  Likely they share politics, opinions and a POV.  What the movie does well is have them talk through the mourning process and it's million frustrations both reasonable and unreasonable.  People want to help!  But sometimes ways they want to help are unhelpful.*  And the things you realize your spouse took care of become painfully obvious when no one is there to do them.

Here is where my eyes about fell out of my head.  I'm roughly the same age as the characters in the movie, and the movie spends a lot of energy worrying about what is Man's role versus what is Woman's role.  And how the two are needed for a whole family.  And while no doubt each parent plays different roles in raising a family, I don't know anyone who still breaks it up the way this movie suggests it's doled out, like we're still in 1965, with Woman doing all the cooking and cleaning, and Man just being wise.  It felt positively retrograde, and also kind of made me wonder what sort of church and community these folks are in, or if this was just super simplified for the movie.  

The romance of it all is cast in purely asexual terms.  These two are making a soul connection, and it's icky to think of mom and dad kissing.  There's even a pointed suggestion that these two are avoiding sex, which also made my eyes pop for a Hallmark movie (and I can tell you from the IMDB reviews, some people misunderstood that moment).

Once the two families start hanging out, you're sort of waiting for the other shoe to drop.  It's been less than a year and people have opinions and are judge-y.  The movie does want you to root for the two, but even I was like "wow, under a year?  Huh."  But, also, I kind of get that at least Chabert's character has been semi-solo-parenting for years at this point.

Despite the fact this is based on a true story, IMDB commentors insist this is "unrealistic".  That inside a year two people would find each other - but I'll argue that those basic commonalities of age, religion, socio-economic stance, likely personal politics, etc... sure grease the wheels.  That folks whisper about you and what you're doing - 100%.  And that in-laws are going to be particularly judgey.  Sure.  

The only time it feels like a concoction of a movie is the last-minute drive across the state at the end for the Christmas pageant business when they all come back together.  It kind of doesn't even make sense.  Maybe it happened, but I kinda doubt it.

Anyway, this movie also made me wonder how many wedding gowns Lacey Chabert has worn in movies - because it is a lot, gang.

The movie is not stupid.  It's a nice little homily about reaching for love even in the face of tragedy.  I'm for that idea.  

Chabert herself is pretty good in this!  Every once in a while you see her able to step outside of the Hallmark comfort zone, and you can see an actor at work there.  And this movie has several of those moments, especially where nothing is said, but a lot is implied.  And that's when acting has to carry the day.  There aren't props like looking meaningfully at photos or whatever in all of these scenes - sometimes someone just says some mean shit, and the characters are reacting to about fifteen different things, and - yeah.  

If I have a criticism, it's that there's no real moment of realization or even a discussion seen of "oh, we're...  kinda moving from leaning on each other to something else".  The point at which this occurs is kind of past the point of initiation of romantic feelings, so it feels more like they jump from "maybe something is happening" to "we're headed for merging the families".  Something in the middle there about the two leads snapping together would have been helpful.

No one is going to accuse this movie of being theater-ready, but it kind of is an ideal TV movie.  It has stakes, you get a bit invested in where this is going, and the blunt honesty of living and working through grief is novel and feels human.  I'm not going to say it was deeply profound, but in comparison to "we really hit it off at Maple Fest" or whatever, this is at least a semi-reflection of a lived human experience.  For Hallmark, this is kind of unusual, but given the demographic, and their goals tuning in, I can see how it might give some viewers the jitters having to deal with actual uncomfortable and unhappy content.  No princes will be married in the course of this movie.

*while my mother is alive and well, I remember the summer she had surgery and all of her friends wanted to bring food, which we accepted.  But apparently "chicken spaghetti" was making the rounds with her friends, because we received it no less than four times in about 8 days.  Friends, I still ate it.