Milliardaire ou presque

Particularly during this world-wide pandemic, The Hallmark films have been a perfect oasis for my wife and me. The lead actors are charming, consummate actors. They took the words written by a fine writer and made the story believable and seamless. The director also honored the writers' story. It was refreshing to see this film slightly deviate from the usual Hallmark format. I would gladly recommend this film to everyone. The viewer will spend a fast 2 hour in a beautiful setting with an excellent cast.

*This section may not end up with my sincere review above. Hallmark, I think you should read and discuss my observations. I have had a long career in the music production business. The music in this film is well written and performed by professional musicians. However, in the last 15 minutes...the two lead actors are having a very honest and loving conversation...but by most accounts the viewer will not hear the writers script or be able to respond emotionally to the two actors portraying impassioned feelings in their facial cues and vocal delivery. Why? Because for some reason, either the director, music composer or the music mix engineer at the final dubbing session decided to diminish the writers words and the actors performance by pushing the level of a singing vocalist way above the level of the actors voices. Invariably this "punch it up" surge in the singers track happens at the most important story point of the film. Thereby robbing the viewer of the time they have invested in watching the film. That is bad enough, but not six minutes later, the singing vocalist again "steps" on the last few lines of the film where the leads are trying to plan their future. This technique, of adding a song near the end of a drama, has become a popular cliche'. Grey's Anatomy is the most consistent offender of this cheap trick. For example: A lady's husband has died suddenly, by an excessive injection of the wrong medicine. At the end of the drama the apologetic Dr talks to the decedents wife..." but this is where the predictable, obligatory song that has nothing to do with the story must be sung over the Dr's apology and wife's grief.

Courtney works as a VIP concierge (is that even a thing? if so, where can I drop my CV?) and is given a job to go to the mountains with a guy named Joe Franklin. However, there is something Joe is hiding from her: who he really is.

It literally took me 24hs to watch this (I kept being distracted by you know, real life, sleep, work, and even a Turkish show, seriously). I did pay attention (mostly) but... honestly? It bored me a little bit. I liked the leads, they had good chemistry and enough scenes to make the romance believable.

(It's funny how her professionalism flew out the window as soon as he asked her to come with him. It didn't took much convincing. That being said, he is so charming, I would probably go with him as soon as he asked too.)

I love winter movies, we saw curling, we saw the leads skiing, we saw dog sledding and the views were pretty.

The plot was okay. I understand why Joe hesitated to tell her the truth and it's a forgivable excuse, and I think Courtney took it quite well, while it was a problem, it wasn't something serious.

And most reviewers are right, the music, specially in the final scene, was too loud, I could barely hear what they said.

Eh...could tell from the beginning we were not going to be excited about this movie, but we hung in there. Everything flowed right off the pages of the script. I was multi-tasking as the movie went progressed. I didn't really feel any chemistry. The two leads were OK, but there was no pop.

Watch it, enjoy the scenery and make up your own minds.

The movie has potential. The story seemed interesting. But I thought the ending with dancing and music and dialogue all at once was difficult.

It didn't feel genuine and there was too much going on to focus on the actors alone. It felt forced to me.

There are some of these movies that I would watch again; unfortunately this is not one of them.

A serious conversation between the lead actors is impossible to hear near the end of the movie, once again Hallmark has made the music too loud! Otherwise, a nice story and a good cast. Good movie, bad sound...