Sweeter Than Chocolate

"Sweeter Than Chocolate" should be re-titled "Depressing as hell." Ok, I watch Hallmark movies as an escape and to enjoy the romance and love stories. This one sounded good. There's a lot of melancholy and 30 minutes before this movie ends, the main character gets unexpected news that makes her sad and from there, her day keeps getting worse and worse and even worse. And, sure, being Hallmark everything is all good again by the end. But I personally did not want to ride along with the upset, negativity, tears, drama and fears. It was too much. I watched until the end because I had to see it get better. I like the light-hearted and fun ones or the sweet, romantic, tender ones. And don't get me wrong, I have enjoyed other Hallmark movies where the characters are still overcoming a past loss. Most of those, are still positive and uplifting in their own ways. This one was had too many other snags going on that upset the characters. Melodramatic and a downer Hallmark movie in my opinion.

This was a romantic addition to the Hallmark film vault and perfectly timed for Valentine's Day. The general story is about a family run chocolate shop that is going to have difficulty making the 40% rent increase and a local reporter who wants to be an on air anchor but has only done gotcha exposé pieces.

The two end up working together for a mutually beneficial project that gives Lucy Sweet much needed exposure for her Sweet Chocolate Shop and Dean Chase gets to show off a softer side as they interview couple for the sweet shop's wall of love. You see Lucy Sweet's grandfather has a special chocolate called the Cupid, that was not for sale but only for friends and family. When Lucy took over the family business and she found her grandfather's secret recipe, her mom talked her in to selling the Cupids for Valentine's Day. The Cupid chocolates seem to have a magical way of bringing couples together...queue the special interest piece on couples brought together by the Cupid.

This was such a sweet and romantic film that didn't discriminate on the type of love represented on the wall...second chance romances, heterosexual, homosexual...everyone's story is told. Meanwhile our two stars seem to be hitting it off with some amazing chemistry and chocolate making!

These two were romantic gold, Eloise Mumford and Dan Jeannotte.

I highly recommend this film to fellow romantics and chocolate lovers. This is an excellent Valentine's Day film. The romance touch m so much I cried!

Lucy Sweet (convenient, but it has an explanation) is a soon to be struggling chocolatier who is given an amazing opportunity when journalist Dean wants to make a story about the "Cupids", chocolates that supposedly make you fall in love.

Eloise is a Hallmark favorite of mine and there were moments in this movie when she kind of made me nervous, but I understood where she was coming from. She just wants to take care of her family and their legacy. Meanwhile, Dean is very ambitious and they crash at first but they end up being a great team. Their chemistry was beautiful, it's all in the little gestures.

The final conflict wasn't forced and it developed naturally. Kudos for that. Also my country was mentioned, yay!

This feature reminded me why I love these silly movies. It took me back to when I only started watching them and all of them felt one of a kind.

I'm a big fan of Eloise Mumford but her character's name, Lucy Sweet, is kinda ridiculous, even for Hallmark (and yeah, we get how reporter Dean Chase is always "chasing" down his next story).

Mumford spends a lot of the movie looking extremely pained and angst ridden- pretty much the opposite of, for example, the always smiling Ashley Williams (I like her too but they have very different styles).

Lucy is apparently very depressed because the rent for her beloved chocolate candy kitchen is going way up. She's also really sad because her dad died. But unless I misunderstood, he didn't just die; I think they said he died 8 years ago. Hey, I get that it's sad to lose a parent. I miss mine every day. But she seemed REALLY upset, like it just happened. And it supposedly made her swear off love because she doesn't want to lose someone she loves.

That's kind of a weird set up, but I was still drawn in by Mumford's engaging presence, and she's surrounded by a strong cast. Her mother Helen is "sweetly" played by Brenda Strong, probably best known for her role in Desperate Housewives. Lucy's love interest is also well played by Dan Jeannotte from The Bold Type. He had kind of a tricky role because, in order to create a kind of mild version of the "enemies to lovers" trope, he's a bit of jerk at the beginning (bad mouthing the business to customers at the business is very uncool).

Fortunately, that only lasts for a few scenes and Lucy actually commends him for being the kind of reporter who "looks out for the little guy" (that scene was one of the best). He added a healthy skepticism about the "magic" chocolate, and ended up doing a really nice job with the story about Lucy's shop. I also really liked Linda Ko, the actress who played his boss. Her character was very capable, strong and no nonsense- without being mean or unpleasant. It was a well written and very well acted role.

I also liked the chemistry between Lucy and Dean. There were lots of smoldering looks and up close heat (especially when they danced and again when they worked together in the kitchen). I was generally pleased with the story but, as usual, Hallmark tends to ignore the real world of business. In most commercial leases, rent increases occur annually based on the Consumer Price Index. Well established reliable businesses have long term leases with 5 year options that include rent increases that are also typically tied to the CPI. When a business' rent is unexpectedly scheduled to go up, it's invariably in connection with a new lease, and these usually get negotiated 6 months before the current lease term term ends.

If the landlord really wants to increase the rent by more than 60% (highly unlikely in the current commercial rental market, especially with a small property) and the tenant can't bring in enough money to absorb that, then they need to either 1) move to a new location, 2) increase their prices, 3) increase their sales, or 4) all three. Here, there was no talk of the first two, and the business was already shown in several scenes as having long lines of people out the door (although those scenes seemed unrealistic).

Remarkably, there was even one scene where Lucy threw good paying customers out of the store. If business was so good, and they were having such a hard time meeting such a high demand, what exactly was the problem other than their inexplicable failure to hire additional help or find a new location?

But I was very happy to see that the inevitable conflict that showed up 3/4 of the way through didn't involve a stupid misunderstanding or some phony anger between the 2 future lovers. Those tropes are getting very old and I'm adding a star just for avoiding them in this movie.

And as part of their commitment to being more diverse, this Hallmark production briefly included 2 different LGBTQ couples. I thought the 2 little old ladies, in particular, were cute and realistic, but I fully expect to see at least 1 or 2 homophobic reviews here by intolerant people who will take pride in switching over to GAC where 7% of the population gets completely ignored.

Overall, this was a pleasant diversion with one of my favorite Hallmark actresses, so thumbs up from me.

One of the other reviewers called it depressing. I call it hopeful. It's about healing from grief, and overcoming one's fears to take that leap of faith. Eloise Mumford is an excellent actress. She was also great in "The Presence of Love."

I really like that the late conflict of the movie wasn't some forced misunderstanding between the leads, or really any problem between them. It was about her needing to overcome her fear, and him needing to decide what he wants.

The middle of the movie features a lot of couples talking about love. This is a heads-up that two of the couples are gay, and one of them kisses.