Nazneen Contractor was born in Mumbai, India and is one of the best diversity castings on Hallmark. I liked her in The Christmas Ring and A Winter Getaway, but this is the best of the three.
I love Hallmark movies and grade them on a curve. Some of my favorites feature the "less common than you'd think" amnesia trope. The best movie featuring a woman with temporary amnesia was Falling For Vermont with Argentinian beauty Julie Gonzalo, but I also liked Ashley Greene and Andrew Walker in Christmas on My Mind, Ali Liebert in a Gift to Remember, and Oscar winner Mira Sorvino in Christmas to Remember.
Hallmark vet Brennan Elliot has been in something like 20 Hallmark movies and is a reliable lead. Nazneen does a nice job of transitioning from a somewhat distant and removed reviewer to a more caring, involved and aware person (without resorting to caricature). I liked the interaction with the daughter (those pecan butterscotch cookies sound delicious) but who takes over the kitchen of someone they don't know at 3am without asking? But that was a rare flaw (the other one was no one being able to access her phone which, at best, maybe suffered a cracked screen).
The critics that unfairly malign Hallmark movies complain that all their movies are the same. They certainly have perfected a romance formula featuring attractive, career minded women juggling the demands of life while honoring important values like love, family, friendship, and community service. And in the last few years, their casts have become much more diverse and inclusive, thereby better reflecting the world we actually live in. That approach has successfully turned the Hallmark Channel into the most watched channel on cable and it's why I watch and vigorously defend their movies. But they have also done a nice job of mixing it up while staying true to a winning formula. Let's face it, no one comes to the Hallmark Channel looking for an unhappy ending.
Here, there's an interesting story about the making and history of ice wine, which I don't think has ever been featured in a Hallmark movie before. And the amnesia trope shows up a lot less often than the secret prince trope.
