Finding Love in Big Sky, Montana

The first two minutes of this movie already took me off guard. Probably the most atrocious voice-over work I have ever heard in professionally made films. Hedy Nasser lacks the basic ability to emote in her narration. It is so bad that I was genuinely amused for a moment.

Fortunately the movie picks up a bit afterwards (I mean how can it not but still). It is a sweet little story about rekindled love and finding roots. I also quite enjoyed Jonathan Stoddard's performance. Supporting characters are fun to watch and provide some much needed levity. For some scenes the dialogues are obviously re-recorded afterwards, which sounds too whispery and stands out like a sore thumb.

I really wanted to like it. But the production just screams amateurish. Awful sound quality and a weak female lead let this movie down.

I love Hallmark type movies and understand who they are for and how much the cost to make (Under 2 million dollars).

I can live with the short comings of a movie shot in 30 days but it all rests on the lead actors.

In this case,, it's rough.

Hedy Nasser is completely miss casted as a rancher even if we forgo the fact that she can't ride horses.

She doesn't have the charisma of someone in charge of a ranch.

She can't convey the financial difficulty that the ranch is facing.

She acts as she would be a guest afraid to speak-up on a "Dude ranch" for city people.

She can not "act" like she belongs on a ranch or near a horse.

She belongs in a "Princess story" or a "Christmas movie".

Jonathan Stoddard plays his character like if he completely depleted of testosterone.

He was way better in "Valentine's Town" and in "Baked with a Kiss".

It's rough.

On the technical side,, the cinematography is spectacular and the color grading is good (That's where the three stars I gave it come from.).

Where it all falls apart, is in the editing room.

The "ADR" (Automated Dialogue Replacement) is obvious, the music is aggressively omnipresent and and loud. The background soundtrack (children laughing) is on a 15 second loop repeating itself and it's grating to the ears.

So, here we are, left with a movie that broke the cardinal rule of the "under 2 million dollar budget" (cast) and it's rough.

This is a rom-com from UPTV, it's an evangelical broadcaster. The plot is at least believable and most of the the dialog is ok. I agree the two leads Nasser and Stoddard are miscast, they don't seem at ease with their roles. Nathan Kehn (Sam) and Raechel Wong (Charlie) should have been cast as the leads, they can act especially Kehn.

The location is beautiful with the snow capped hills and mountains, it reminds me of Montana and Alberta, more likely it was filmed in Canada - British Columbia or Alberta. Filming in winter with overcast skies does darken scenes, a production and cinematography problem. Limited budget so there are few characters and this may have been filmed during COVID restrictions.

I wanted to like this movie. Horses, Big Sky country, horses -- it had great potential. Disappointedly, the "star" who plays Paisley was flat, unemotional, and acted like this was her first acting gig, which ruined the show for me. The scene with her tryingvto split wood was laughable. No way she was coached to rest an axe on her shoulder and swing from there. Stoddard was okay as leading man but marginally so. Honestly, Nathan Kehn would have been a Much better choice. The audio was muddy, voices hard to understand unless turned very loud, background noises too pronounced. As a native Montanan, I found it hard to believe ranchers using seat belts. Really? Too bad, this could have been a nice rom-com.

I have to admit I wasn't expecting much from this movie. I'm not a huge fan of western movies and it looked boring. So it took me a few weeks after I recorded it to watch it. Then one day I needed to delete some movies, I decided to watch the first 5 minutes of it before deleting it.

I was surprised - pleasantly. I ended up watching it to the end! I thought the two lead actors gave decent performances. I liked the diverse cast. I thought the story was heartwarming.

But I think the ending was a little bit weak. There were a couple of loose ends that could have been addressed. Despite these unresolved subplots, I still thought this movie was good enough for at least a one-time viewing.