Finding Love in Big Sky, Montana

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.

Two overused premises. Paisley needs to save the ranch she inherited from beloved grandpa. Josh flees LA to lay low while scandal threatens his job. The two old flames reunite and what do they do? Well lets just say it's the same thing they do in similar circumstances in hundreds of these movies. Beyond that, there isn't much story and certainly no highs or lows. As for a predictable conflict, when the phone rang just before the last commercial I said to myself, No. Please don't use that plot device Again.

The acting is fair. There's little chemistry. The dialogue is just OK. I kind of liked Hedy Nasser for her cute sweetness, but that also sapped some of the intended strong woman vibe.

It's supposed to be a bad thing to use an "info dump" especially in a movie. My thoughts were - good, let's get all that over and settled. But then the story dragged anyway. And the voice is that opening narration was slightly grating.

There is some nice scenery but there is only so much appeal to looking at snowcapped mountains on the horizon with a bright blue sky.

It isn't really that this movie has anything great wrong with it. The problem is that it is just totally bland with the same story lines as so many other movies.

The story was okay. The pretty actress, while her acting was okay, had an emotionless voice, monotone, no feeling. There was no personality to speak of. The story starts with her narrating. There was no chemistry between the two leads.

The basic story was similar to many others, but the scenery was nice. I gave it a 6. No misunderstandings or big conflict, which was fine. Just nothing worth watching again.

I have to write 600 characters for this review to be published. So, hmm, did I say it was boring?

There were horses, trail riding, kids.

No empty coffee cups that I remember. I don't remember seeing any of the actors before.

There was money needed, and a loan was applied for. It was an extreme amount, which I thought was unlikely to be approved. And there was subsequent fundraising which of course came no where close to the large amount of money requested.

There were two couples who found romance.

I appears that we will be seeing fewer reviews here. I enjoy the short reviews, and rarely read a long one all the way through. If you got this far, you know I am trying to fill a character quota. Omg.

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.

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.