2015 did see some good and more Hallmark films, such as 'Surprised by Love', 'A Country Wedding' and 'All of My Heart'. It did also see some duds, like 'Merry Matrimony', 'Love by the Book' and 'Portrait of Love'. 'Romantically Speaking' has a premise that is not a novel one by any stretch of the imagination, have seen it a number of times with Hallmark since (although seeing those prior to this) with varied success, and it is one that can go on either way of harming and fun or unbearably cheesy and irritating.
'Romantically Speaking' unfortunately is in the latter extreme. As far as the 2015 Hallmark films go, it is one of the worst and does absolutely nothing new, or even really anything, with the premise. Is 'Romantically Speaking' Hallmark at its worst? No, not quite, as there are a few good things that are enough to make it a curiosity watch. Is it a good example of how bad Hallmark can be? Yes, with a lot of the flaws often found with Hallmark's films evident.
The best thing about 'Romantically Speaking' is Jonathan Bennett, who is great here and has a very likeable character that he plays with subtle charisma and easy going, down to earth charm while not making him too perfect.
Did think too that the production values were quite nice, the scenery does catch the eye in a good way.
Unfortunately, that is pretty much it. Heather Morris is just terrible, she is very uptight, exaggerates many of her expressions and mannerisms and also is very affected and obnoxious. Especially when she tries to act younger than she is. Her very underdeveloped character is truly insufferable to the point of it really unbalancing the film badly, her arrogance, snobbishness and lack of maturity grated very quickly (almost immediately) and never stopped, and the film misses the opportunity to show why and how she became to be that way. Really found it really difficult to see what Bennett's character saw in her and there is no romantic chemistry whatsoever between them, or really any discernible chemistry full stop, too distant and also too much of a mismatch personality wise.
Also never found the story engaging, the predictability didn't bother me so much as that is expected from Hallmark, but the very draggy pacing, that it is very thin and near uneventful too often and non stop suspension of disbelief (Morris's character appeal was completely lost on me which made everything that goes on hard to buy). Not to mention the lack of characters that are interesting or worth connecting, with the sole exception of Bennett's, the too implausibly neat ending and phoned in support acting (even Teri Polo) who seem at sea with what to do with the very little they have. The writing is consistently awkward and the cheese and schmaltz levels are really hard to take, the cheese has to be heard to be believed.
Overall, very weak film. 3/10.
