Romance in Hawaii

I love Kelley Jakle, but I wonder about casting an obvious blonde in a role where that would be a definite handicap for the character trying to make inroads in the midst of a community with strong cultural values that border on xenophobic at times. The movie even makes references to that by using pejorative labels for people from outside.

As if xenophobia isn't enough negativity, Leah has a competitor for promotion who plays dirty using sexism against her and a boss who plays into it. "Women have to work twice as hard to get half as far." Unfortunately, at a time when Leah should be focusing on business, she decides to concentrate a lot of effort on socializing and Hula and seems to ignore what she was sent for.

Interestingly neither of these things is the focus of the movie. There is a lot of screentime spent on Hulu dancing. This combines with the romantic plot thread, but it also shortchanges that a bit.

From the minute Leah meets the hotel events coordinator, Ikaika, and then the property owner at least part of the general outcome is predictable. This becomes apparent before the midpoint. Another theme that seems to be universal in this type of movie is that of the Evil Developers who want to destroy everything beautiful putting only buildings in their place. (Are all Developers really that stupid?) I thought there were some rough parts in getting there because not everything made sense. To explain what I mean would be spoilers and I don't want to do that.

I love to hear Jakle sing and she does one song,

Dance of the heart, also called romance in hawaii. Leah (kelley jakle) is sent to hawai'i on assignment. With her co-worker. But right from the start, we know that they are there under false pretenses; the property on which they want to bid cannot be sold to a company. And yet they are making offers on behalf of their company. Clearly, there will be a painful confession at some point where the seller realizes a company is the actual buyer. Leah takes informal hula lessons from ikaika (cedric jonathan), one of the islanders working at the hotel. Having been to kauai'i many times, the sunsets are incredible. As well as the deep colors. And the fun people. And the beaches. And the customs. Here, the script needed some fixing up; in the first half of the film, many of the conversations are choppy and awkward. Almost as if some of the lines were missing. Rough editing? The basic story is very sweet, and I admire the lessons and hawai'ian customs that are shared with the viewer. I'm sure not many mainlanders (including myself) knew the rules concerning hula. Having hiked the north shore of na pali, some day I would love to visit the ceremonial hula platforms on the property. It's a beautiful story, and a nice opportunity to share customs, songs, and hula with the mainlanders. So why does leah feign surprise when ikaika learns the truth? We all heard the boss talking about the false premise right at the start. Sure, leah didn't realize who actually owned the land, but she knew from the start they were going in under false pretenses, and that would anger the family. It is a cute story, but the script just needed a tune-up. Directed by nanea miyata.

The best thing about this movie is the background setting. Whether or not it is actually Hawaii, it is beautiful. The actors do a decent job of.pushing the story forward, though the story is predictable and not particularly realistic. The dialogue wasn't the best, but it was serviceable for this genre of movie.

The key issue I have with the movie is that they overdid it on the cultural explanations. I felt like a cult recruit receiving a sales pitch. A little goes a long way, but the writers filled nearly every scene with another explanation of Hawaiian culture. They should have spent more time on the romance. As it was, they made Hawaii the main character, which meant everything else felt undeveloped.

I loved this movie. Not a typical Hallmark movie type. A real good story ececellent acting and beautiful scenery. I like the way the leads played off each other. The Hawaiian customs were interesting and extremely informative. In addition I appreciated no politics no hidden agenda just a very nice entertaining movie. I often wonder why more movies are done like this without the politics or hidden agenda. The story was original with good substance and very realistic Hackle the lead actress demonstrated very good range and believable. Hackles colleague can't act to save his life. He was comical and not in a good way. His part was ridiculous plus again his acting was forced. All in all a very nice movie with UpTv.

This could have been good with better actors and a bit of rework of the script. As it is, it seems artificial, forced. The leads just recite the lines but I can't see any feelings from them. It's difficult to watch.

The lead actress has a lovely singing voice and beautiful eyes. Maybe she is good in something else but this role wasn't good for her.

The male lead is very good looking but a wooden actor. I can believe him as a dancer. Otherwise, he is sort of boring.

I like films with cultural elements and I would like to learn about hula but, somehow, in this film, everything sounded fake. I don't know if the hula part was realistic. I couldn't really buy the premise.