A New Year's Resolution

It seems so cool and fresh/ refreshing, inspired, romantic and just seductive than becomes, scene by scene, more than the expected Hallmark. A beautiful chemistry between Aimee Teegarden and. Michael Rady, nice dialogues, charming resolutions, honest hopeful. Just admirable work.

Hallmark romance movies are pretty hamstrung in their formulae. Heroine comes into or back to a charming (or her childhood) small town for a short period of time, and must get back to her fantastically successful career ASAP. Usually, although the heroine has everything going for her, she is still (or recently) single, and willing to give up said achievements in a heartbeat once she is looked at twice by the recalcitrant hero, who often has less to offer than she does. Hero is set up as an initial adversary for the heroine. Timing between initial meeting & ultimate clinch (usually accompanied by a proposal of marriage after one or possibly two kisses) is lightning fast. It was refreshing to see a Hallmark film that's a little bit different. This one came without gasps of amazement at the lighting of a Christmas tree (Seriously? When was the last time you craned your neck in a crowd, mesmerized at such a commonplace site? Yet Hallmark trots out that lame trope in every winter holiday flick). The lead actors here actually have chemistry. The supporting characters are believable too. No lame gingerbread cookie or house competition here. No community festival that the entire town can't seem to live without. No children or teenagers breathless with anticipation at decorating for the holiday (rather than whining about being taken away from their video games &/or social media for a chore and tradition they care little about). The hero and heroine here actually seem to get along. The conflict between them is credible (since it was pulled from an actual news story). Granted, the male lead seems more that a bit naive in his faith in corporate executives, but his blinders aren't on for long. And the final resolution, although it seems to have skipped a few chapters from breakup to reconciliation, also didn't stretch the imagination too far. And the actor playing the hero sure knows how to act charming.

Michael Rady and Aimee Teagarden have wonderful chemistry. I loved watching every scene with them (prior to the conflict). I wish there had been more. The acting is mostly good all around. Important characters seemed natural to me.

I've said several times that in Hallmark type rom/coms it is necessary to suspend a demand for realism to some extent or another. This movie has two huge plot holes. The first is when a pretty young woman appearing on TV saying she won't turn down any invitations. I'm glad the movie didn't go into the gutter on that one, but in reality that would have been a disaster. The second is the obvious conflict of interest which would have torpedoed their story in the real world. Here's a case of the writers "hanging a lantern on it" when Kelly brings that up and they almost immediately dismiss it. So we'll give this movie two Mulligan's instead of just one and move on.

Disregard those problems, or find a better way around them, and this is a good story. I can't remember a story quite like it (at least recently). There is some real conflict and some angst. There are some great situations. There's also some good dialogue. Some is funny. Some is a little highbrow. Some gets a little philosophical. This movie goes a little more sophisticated than a lot of what we see on Hallmark, even given the two plot holes I pointed out.

Looking at actors' pages on this web site, this movie shows up as both 2019 and 2021. I can't believe I missed it in 2019. Wonder what happened.

Kelly is a producer at a morning show, Tom works in marketing in a National Bank. She believes in New Year's Resolutions, he doesn't. Her resolution is "to say yes to social invitations"

Unbelievable. We get a different movie than the usual Hallmark gives us and people start complaining. I liked it. We have two people who meet each other, like each other, flirt, go on dates until we have a problem threatening to split them up, which, in my opinion was quite realistic.

There are reviewers saying that the leads didn't have chemistry: i'm sorry, were we watching the same movie? The chemistry was amazing. Both leads were great, but Michael was probably my favorite. His character was quite charming and he definitely knows how to keep me watching.

The script was quite original. We had fun activities and we had a group of friends (we usually get one or a sibling). The characters just talked to each other like the mature adults they are, they never kept anything to each other (even at the ending, and I will defend Tom, he tried his best to tell her). And the romance was ON POINT. The final scene was delightful. Not gonna lie though, I was expecting a flash-forward (since they kind of share a dream) and I was disappointed there wasn't one.

So, I liked it, and this movie gets extra stars for originality.

For main characters two-of my favorite HM actors. They Duda good job throughout but the ending felt either rushed or incomplete. Iwouls like to see msteegarden in more movies. No spoilers here as the premise is simple,e about New Years resolution. Someone saying yes to new things. I just felt the ending felt like they ran out of time