A Feeling of Home

This was so bad I can't even begin to describe how much. Everything from the atrocious acting, to the contrived plot, to the over the top accents. Not your best attempt, Hallmark.

For a regular, devoted Hallmark viewer, Saturday night original movies are often looked forward to as new, exciting, innovative romantic offerings. Unfortunately, this film was not one of those. The storyline was familiar..successful young female star returns home..(one of Hallmark's very over-used scenarios)..because her father has had an accident and cannot run his business..She encounters an old lost love, and the rest of the film leads the viewer to finding out how the young woman resolves her old, unfinished romance, saves her father's business (in this case a Texas farm), and manages to find a way to stay "home" rather than return to her successful life in another city. The formula often works..but is becoming over-used in order to fit into the Hallmark niche. A large deterrent in this film was the poor acting. The hero's contrived Texas accent was so broad that many of his lines were blurred and incomprehensible. The father's stiff acting was never convincing or genuine. He sounded as if he was reading his lines from a poster board. It felt sad to see and aging Robbie Benson brought back in such an unsympathetic role. The young leading actress did her best with such poor material..using smiling as a form of acting. Interestingly one of the most impressive performances in this film was offered by David Lewis, a very familiar Hallmark star..usually seen as the second male lead, the rejected suitor, the innocent loser. In this film, he gets a chance to appear strong, decisive, and mature as a business tycoon with firm decisions and a serious demeanor. What a refreshing delight! For this viewer, he carried the film, being cast beside the shallow performances of the three main leads. This is pleasant diversion for a rainy evening, but it is surely not worthy of a Saturday night prime time Hallmark presentation.

The basic sin is the deep unrealism of story. Sure, it is A Hallmark production and the romance must be the only significant. But something, almost at the each scene, seems just wrong. To not be very critic, a good points exists - the decent portrait of father, more a sketch, off course, of. Robby Benson. But the formula Connecticut versus Texas and so easy/ enthusiastic acceptance of the boss of it is just awful. So, a story in Texas.

The reason I gave a 5 star ranking was that I was laughing through out. I am amazed anyone involved thought this was a serious attempt to portray ranch life in Texas. The performing ranch chores was hysterical. Clearly there wasn't a single person every involved in this movie who has ever stepped foot on a working ranch. When Abby drove the garden tractor around the field to the delight of her father, i almost fell off my chair laughing. The yellow rose booth at the fair, the backdrop for the Texas internet broadcast seem to magically appear. I would not be surprised if anyone involved with this movie would quickly sue to get their name removed from the credits. It may well have been a career threatening decision to associate one's self with this production. Yikes!

Read an unusual amount or severely negative reviews of this movie. This movie is no better or worse than an other Hallmark movie with this well worn plot line. Reading the reviews before watching the movie, (I had paused it to check out some of the actors), I was tempted to delete the film, they were so extremely negative. It followed the same script all these small town/big city movies use. Either you like them or you don't. Such extreme vitriol, I think was unwarranted.