Um Encontro com o Destino

This is not your typical Hallmark movie that has been common for the two Hallmark channels.

I found this enjoyable. Not at all what I expected from viewing the trailer for the past few weeks.

It didn't have the typical music, the cookie cutter children, the same old romance story. It had depth and realism. With a story that was actually touching.

I certainly hope that it means that Hallmark is moving away from their usual fare and are returning to the meaningful movies with different stories that they showed when Hallmark was younger.

Good for them. Keep it up.

The acting wasn't that bad as a whole, but the directing was off. The script wasn't great either. A tragedy has happened a few days before and there's more smiling in the wrong places at the wrong time by those who would have been more affected. The lead actress was okay, the kids did well. The story's been done before much better. Raising Helen being the best example. Even Sweet Carolina was done more effectively. Very predictable; nothing memorable about this movie. Watched and deleted.

This one, Christmas Town (2019) and one or two others I can't remember off the top of my head are the only three or four I like and could rewatch. Only criticism I have would be probably the ending.

I didn't care for this one. I found the acting of the main girl, Margaret, flat and stiff. I didn't like the kids either. Of course the story was predictable to the max, but did not have any thing else to offset that flaw. And who makes a cousin the guardian of their children without asking them or even letting them know? Real classy. Aunt Bertha's southern accent was way over the top. The actress is from Arkansas so I guess she comes by it naturally, but it sounded phony. The ending was cheesy in the extreme. The actor who played the little boy gave a good performance at the recital.

It doesn't seem like that long ago Hallmark had Sweet Carolina. From previews and as this movie started, I was thinking total ripoff (not to mention "Life As We Know It"), but this movie started to deviate from those others fairly quickly. There were several close similarities, but some of the dynamics were different. One was the boyfriend who was a total jerk. I'm surprised Margaret didn't go ballistic on him because he deserved it. The other was the family pressure was much lower key in this movie. As a result, this movie was different enough to be enjoyable on it's own.

I wasn't familiar with Danielle C. Ryan. After she did some guitar playing and singing, I was thinking that this is another singer trying to be an actor. Her voice sounded decent especially for a country vibe. So I looked her up and at least on this website, there is no indication of that. In fact, her acting resume is fairly well filled out for being under 30. I thought her performance was stiff for the first half of the movie. By the end, however, I was beginning to like her.. Unfortunately, I didn't see a lot of chemistry with Myko Olivier. I think that's explained by the fact that this movie was about a lot more than a romance between a man and a woman. You might say it was a romance between a woman and the two kids she's caring for. There was chemistry there.

As for Skyler Elyse Philpot and Luke Loveless, they did a nice job. I especially liked Skyler.

Some of the story didn't feel right. Most glaring was that any grief was really shortchanged. There was maybe one scene with "I want mommy" and then everyone moved on until that emotion was needed late in the movie.