Meet Me in New York

Joe (Corey Sevie) is moving to Dubai for a new job and he doesn't have the guts to tell his family yet so he promises his niece to throw her a birthday party so he hires Kelly (Brooke Nevin) to plan it.

I stumbled across this movie by chance. It's a TV movie so if it says New York it's definitely not filmed in the big city but it still got my attention having watched the leads previously. It's an okay movie if you wanna watch something happy without thinking too much.

The two leads start their relationship with the left foot but soon they start to trust each other. Kelly has her own agenda in the agreement which makes you think you know the ending, but I was personally surprised it didn't go that way.

This is the perfect movie if you wanna disconnect from the real world.

Where do these movie companies get their actors from ? Because if those in this film are the best of those auditioned, then the movie industry is in dire straits. The "acting" was forced, and who meets their best friend in a coffee shop with squeals to tell them they need to see each other more ? The over-acting of the friend was cringe worthy, and she needs to have more acting lessons.

Then there is the precocious child who knows and demands everything. Once she came into the picture, we were in children's TV territory when a birthday party was mentioned and organised. At this point I'd had enough and switched off.

There's actually a line in the script that requires the lead man to state the immortal words "That was the worst acting ever". It suggests that the film's makers didn't take themselves too seriously and that is the best way to approach watching this movie. There is a sense in which the idea of a lavish party for a ten-year old child, complete with hired alpacas, is extravagant and beyond what most viewers will have experienced in their own lives. But this is escapist fantasy and, in any case, wait to see how the party turns out! There's a (lightly peddled) moral message here and I enjoyed watching it. There are several 'should they or shouldn't they' dilemmas running in parallel (a promotion, a move abroad, letting down a friend, should they even turn up to the party?) and I think it all knitted together quite nicely. This is not great cinematic art and neither is it a waste of time. Agreed, the New York depicted is a very clean and safe version and I'm not sure the Canadian lead actress convinces as a daughter of the South, but these are distractions. My advice is to follow the plot as it unravels and recognise it for being a simple, well-intentioned piece of family film-making. If you have a ten year-old child to watch it with you, it will be the perfect recipe and give you lots to discuss afterwards.

The direction, sound, lighting and editing were up to the usual turn the crank Hallmark offering, but the chemistry among the leads was less so and the dialog leaned more toward irritation or annoyance than real relationship. Picking at each other over and over again might reflect an elementary school romance, but not a mature adult one.

The worst thing for me were the accents. They did not have to set the movie in New York City, but once they made that decision, how hard would be be for any competent, trained actor to do at least a minimal Yankee accent. Not one specific to a borough. One from anywhere in New England would help.

But no, every one here is mid-western or western Canadian throughout. Did the coffee guy, the leads, the animal handler, the relatives all arrive in NYC yesterday?

The street scenes were daylight and all but deserted. Has any part of NYC every looked like that?

Hard to carry the viewers into a place that none of them seem to have ever seen.

"Kelly" had a marvelous opportunity to blend a distinctive New Orleans accent with an overlay of Manhattan, but instead she didn't even attempt to sound either Cajun nor northerner.

I feel sorry for the composer - he tries to provide some musical carpet but nothing really can raise this one long yawn into any sort of life. Nothing seems to matter in this pile of mediocrity and IMO it's a miss. Zzzz.