What I Did for Love

James is lost & they think he drove to LA..Wasn't his car outside?

Typical Hallmark movie fare...not very good...with canned, repetitive music. Only reason to have this movie on is the scenery in Lone Pine, California. This is the setting of so many great westerns. It is just beautiful.

This is the story of a big city doctor (Sadie) bringing her lawyer boyfriend (Travis) home to the ranch where she grew up to meet her family (widowed dad and brothers) for the first time.

The boyfriend wants to marry her. She wants to take it slower and for her father to meet him first, even though she is convinced her dad will love him. He is a city boy and wants to make a good impression, and the family is rural as they live on a ranch. Sadie has an ex-boyfriend back in the town she grew up in who really wants to reunite with her. Everything goes wrong for the boyfriend until everything goes right in time for a happy ending with life lessons learned.

A terrible movie, even for a TV movie. The actress playing Sadie is awful. At no time did I believe Sadie was a doctor, nor did I believe she grew up on a ranch. Sadie seemed to me to be a spoiled city girl with no clue. She was a totally unlikeable character. Now, I know the movie's plot called for the boyfriend to do some stupid things out of ignorance of ranching life, but I was thinking if she was my girlfriend, knowing I was ignorant and a fish-out-of-water, and didn't take a moment to explain some things, is she the right person for me?

The boyfriend, Travis, was hapless and pathetic. A lawyer, yes. A successful lawyer, no.

Sadie is an only daughter and supposedly the father is protective of his only daughter, but mainly he came across as crusty. At least the actor playing this character had a little charisma and tried to act in his limited role.

Sadie's brothers were throwaway characters.

Sally Struthers is an Aunt who wants Sadie to reunite with Sadie's ex-boyfriend. Why? Because the plot needs a reason for the obvious one-note loser of an ex-boyfriend to show up to be the story's bad guy. The Aunt also had a slight subplot which... who cares!

Throw in some mumbo-jumbo about environmentalists and grazing rights and wolves. The writer doesn't seem to understand the issues, and if she did, she didn't let that get in the way of the story. The writer seemed to not want to offend anyone and her solution of the environmentalists buying instead of taking the grazing rights, and then the ranchers buying grazing rights elsewhere had the problem that grazing rights are associated with land and they don't make new land or new leases. I shook my head in disbelief when the solution was to take the money and buy new grazing rights somewhere else. And where would that be?

So the grazing rights solution should tick off the ranchers watching the movie. The environmentalists should be ticked off as someone in the movie is threatened by a wolf and needs to be saved. I live in Montana where the government is re-establishing wolf packs in the area (Montana, Idaho, and Yellowstone Nat'l park). What wolf supporters are saying is that wolves don't attack people. Livestock, yes. People, no. This movie and its portrayal of wolves should upset the environmentalists.

I kept thinking the movie couldn't get any worse but then they wrapped it up with a 'can't we all just be friends' happy ending. The boyfriend at the last minute was able to save the day, win a fight, bake a fretata everyone adored, and win over everyone. Surprise.

Now, I can like a clichéd movie as much as the next guy, but to ignore the clichés one needs interesting actors. The dull actors in this movie couldn't overcome the heavy handed and terrible story. The only thing I liked about this movie was a couple scenes of a sunrise/sunset that was pretty.

Avoid this movie!

OK, I realize that this steaming pile is a Hallmark (makes me nauseous) production, but it's even more lame then the usual Hallmark crap. I like James Gammon, but his character makes me want to kick him in the you know what. Going through the motions trying to deal with a really poorly written screenplay. I almost didn't recognize Sally Struthers as the aunt. I instantly recognized the scenery from personal experience doing a lot of hiking around the independence and Lone Pine area and Bishop California. In the background it shows Mount Whitney in a couple of scenes and the Alabama Hills are a reall fugged place with amazing rock formations, so the cinematography is outstanding and in my opinion the only redeeming quality at this movie can claim. If you like the sickly sweet thing like Hallmark cards usually are you might like this. Personally I was struggling to watch it all the way to the end, but at least the family comes around to the boyfriend's side.

Weak and predictable. I love the Sierra Nevada's so I continued to watch so I could see the Mountains and Mt. Whitney in some background scenes. The movie was kinda bad though. "Dad's" acting was horrible and so was Sadies. It got old fast because it was not believable at all. The night in the cave was useless and added no benefit to the film at all. Come on - Ranchers come home and unsaddle their horses and they don't notice the only horse left behind is gone - with a house guest also missing but his car is still there..And she calls and leaves him a message at this apt...Just hooky and corny. A sequel - I sure hope not. Again, the mountains were the best part of the picture! Absolutely beautiful.