Everything Puppies

Stephen Huszar (Alex) and Pascal Lamothe-Kipnes (Scarlett) seemed well paired; unfortunately, my saying that is not a compliment. I don't consider Huszar one of the better Hallmark actors though I can never put my finger on why I feel that. Since I'm having to put more though in to to write this review I'm thinking it might be because he doesn't seem to be into the part he's playing as some of the other actors might. A bit more of a feel of a person going through the motions of a job because it's a job instead of something they love. Anyway I digress. I decided to do a review because I had given this a lower rating & raised it for two reasons 1. I often get annoyed at the formula conflict point of a movie when it's unrealistic and overplayed. I thought this movie, while slightly overplayed, still had one of the better conflict scenarios between the main character's and the way it was played out.

2. How can I not give points for the great job the adorable dogs and pups did.

If you love dogs and warm fuzzy movies with them in it it's worth a watch.

As with many Hallmarks movies, this one has a poor script so it was flawed from the start. Steve Huszar is a known quantity, he's been in many Hallmark movies and he's a good and reliable actor. The lead actress is always the star, but casting Pascal Lamothe-Kipnes was a huge mistake, she's terrible as is the director for not getting a better performance from her.

Puppies are always an attention grabber in movies, but they weren't enough to salvage this film. As always Hallmark locations are great and I've always appreciated their positive movies, but some are better than others. Overall their quality is much better than Real One Entertainment and Nicely films, they are still the gold standard for mass produced rom-coms.

This movie seems to prioritize the following themes in this order: 1) Cutthroat business wars; 2) Puppies and dogs; 3) Work/life balance; 4) Scarlett and Alex's relationship. The ranking is subjective as I saw it. Regardless of that, my point is that this rom/com spent a LOT of screen time on the business wars including unethical conduct behind the scenes. I don't tune in to Hallmark to watch a cliche portrayal of cutthroat business. I suspect most people who tune in to this channel do so more for relationship development.

The theme of work/life balance has been popular on Hallmark for a while now. There is nothing wrong with it, but it gets a lot of play.

The puppies are definitely cute and are a definite plus for this movie.

Scarlett's dog treats were almost magical in the way dogs reacted so instantly and so strongly. And they are healthy too!

Acting. Something was off at times. Rather than the acting, it may have been something else. Transitions were rough at times. Dialogue seemed trite at times. And the brand Pup Chuck. I did a web search on those two words and off to the right, but at the top of the page was a definition section for the word "up-chuck". The similarity is probably intentional since the guy pushing the Pup Chuck brand was the movie's cardboard villain. He didn't have a handlebar mustache though. Maybe the thing that seemed off to me was the humor which seemed to be based on parody but didn't seem to be invested in it.

Stephen Huszar is 40 this year. The only thing I could find about Pascal Lamothe-Kipnes was somewhere between 22 and 28. That's a notable age difference for a romance story. Scarlett's character seemed youngish in the way she approached things.

For story and acting, I would probably not watch this again. The puppies and dogs made it watchable for one time through.

I feel that Stephen's talent was wasted with this movie. Pascal Lamothe-Kipnes is lacking, I'm not sure if it was chemistry between her and Stephen or she is just that bad at portraying this particular character. Trying to mix comedy with sexual harassment in the workplace didn't sit well with me and is very surprising to me that Hallmark didn't think this through. The lack of "puppies" was very disappointing as well, yes there was some dogs, but very little scenes with puppies. This is movie was so bad that I actually created an account to leave a review and I was curious what others had to say as well.

To heck with the naysayers. I found the movie to be entertaining and uplifting. Take away my man-card if you want, but I've watched hundreds of hours of Hallmark movies with my wife over the years, and I've got to say, I thought this one not a bad movie.

Sure, the women could have been more professional when they received the first order, but what's the big deal? It's a classic story of David vs. Goliath woven with a three act love story ending with a happily ever after.

Did I expect the production quality to be up there with Gone with the Wind? Or course not. But I thought the actors did a good job overall.