Finding Love in Mountain View

It doesn't seem like that long ago Hallmark had Sweet Carolina. From previews and as this movie started, I was thinking total ripoff (not to mention "Life As We Know It"), but this movie started to deviate from those others fairly quickly. There were several close similarities, but some of the dynamics were different. One was the boyfriend who was a total jerk. I'm surprised Margaret didn't go ballistic on him because he deserved it. The other was the family pressure was much lower key in this movie. As a result, this movie was different enough to be enjoyable on it's own.

I wasn't familiar with Danielle C. Ryan. After she did some guitar playing and singing, I was thinking that this is another singer trying to be an actor. Her voice sounded decent especially for a country vibe. So I looked her up and at least on this website, there is no indication of that. In fact, her acting resume is fairly well filled out for being under 30. I thought her performance was stiff for the first half of the movie. By the end, however, I was beginning to like her.. Unfortunately, I didn't see a lot of chemistry with Myko Olivier. I think that's explained by the fact that this movie was about a lot more than a romance between a man and a woman. You might say it was a romance between a woman and the two kids she's caring for. There was chemistry there.

As for Skyler Elyse Philpot and Luke Loveless, they did a nice job. I especially liked Skyler.

Some of the story didn't feel right. Most glaring was that any grief was really shortchanged. There was maybe one scene with "I want mommy" and then everyone moved on until that emotion was needed late in the movie.

6.6 stars.

Margaret left her life behind, that's the best description of this film as a whole. Margaret's cousin and best friend has died and left her two kids. Now she has to wrestle with a major life decision: to take the kids or let grandma take them.

There are so many flaws in this story, I'm not sure where to begin, so I will touch on a few very lightly, and move on with my day. I have bigger and better films to rate. First of all, her best friend in the whole wide world has two kids, a wonderful little girl and boy, and Margaret has never met them? Talk about an outstanding friendship...who just leaves everything important behind for so many years, not just a few years, these kids are like 8 and 10 years old? Next, Margaret's ex-boyfriend teaches at the school where the kids attend, and he actually helps take care of them and has been, and so they both have a connection again through the children. And so it begs the question: why did you leave all of this behind? And why would your ex-best friend/cousin leave her kids in your care? Nope, no way, uh-uh. Margaret is currently dating a very professional and business oriented man who tries to integrate into her new situation as she is caring for the kids. It's a very awkward situation, and we can see that he's on his way out, so it fits with the Hallmark formula.

The movie is slow, the music and sound are a bit wonky, the rest is average. The kids are cute. You can detect some sort of issues with the boy, he's bullied at school, seems to have a mild form of autism or something. His sister tries to take care of him. I think she's younger, but she acts older, looks younger, talks older? Really hard to tell. This movie doesn't do it for me. I can see the potential for appeal to some audiences, just not this audience of one.

Was worried I wouldn't like this movie since I thought it would be a Sweet Carolina movie. But it was really good. Good actors, good storyline.

This one, Christmas Town (2019) and one or two others I can't remember off the top of my head are the only three or four I like and could rewatch. Only criticism I have would be probably the ending.

I didn't care for this one. I found the acting of the main girl, Margaret, flat and stiff. I didn't like the kids either. Of course the story was predictable to the max, but did not have any thing else to offset that flaw. And who makes a cousin the guardian of their children without asking them or even letting them know? Real classy. Aunt Bertha's southern accent was way over the top. The actress is from Arkansas so I guess she comes by it naturally, but it sounded phony. The ending was cheesy in the extreme. The actor who played the little boy gave a good performance at the recital.