Romantic Rewrite

If you're into reading lips and/or closed captioning, go for it. Otherwise it's difficult to comprehend what's being said. And it's across the board - every member of the cast. All of them acted as if they were afraid to be on screen and just wanted to spit their words out and get off camera. Almost like watching a movie in a different language - or one from a junior high school stage. That, coupled with truly dreadful sound quality, made this a much harder watch than expected.

Then there's the cast and characters. The lead's sister and the bride were both majorly annoying characters. Who wrote this stuff? Guess I expected that if GAC is planning to rival Hallmark, they'd at least try to find a better product than this. Choppy. Choppy. Choppy. From beginning to end.

Great scenery - thanks for filming in the U. S. In this case it just couldn't redeem the overall experience.

This movie would be above average Reel One Entertainment TV movie but it wouldn't be ROE if they didn't - read at the end.

I really like fake relationship trope and it was executed pretty well. Acting was solid except Reed Favero who played annoying adult brat but people like him exist so it's ok. There was a bit of some bad makeup, lighting, and cuts but nothing serious like in many other ROE TV movies. Movie plot location is in Florida, and it was actually filmed in the beautiful Miami.

There are two reasons why I gave it 4* instead 6*. This is message to Reel One Entertainment - pay somebody to do proper audio production because most of your TV movies suffer from the obnoxiously loud background music! Dialogue in this movie is literally barely audible in Acts I and III - I had to read subtitles which are mostly badly translated in this part of the world! Several scenes also suffer from horrendous audio recording. The second reason is the cast issues. You see, Ivy has parents and married sister Clarisa. Her parents, aunt Edith, sister Clarisa and her husband came to the wedding week, but for some reason her father and brother in law didn't speak a word whole movie. They were just there, and even more insulting is that Clarisa's husband was active in only men's activities but he was mute. And yet her mother and aunt had screen and talking time.

In the typical bad ROE tradition, trailer compress whole movie in 2:06 min so don't watch it if you plan to watch movie as is full of spoilers.

I give this movie an eight for the concept, but a four for the execution, and I'll tell you why in a minute.

First, we liked the actors and thought the leads did a good job. The overall story idea was clever, and as an author, I particularly like movie ideas which include writers. And yes, sometimes an editor can help an author identify issues in their plotting and seriously improve a manuscript.

Here's the other side. Last year I wrote a murder mystery, and over the last two years I've been writing a series of RomComs, so I've kind of got my elbows down in that type of work. They say the guy handles his romance relationship all wrong, and the editor is going to help him improve that. Fine. What they missed were any DETAILS to make that trope more real to the viewer.

In the far superior Trading Christmas, a woman helps a male author with the relationship in his manuscript and what's wrong with his female character, and they at least talk about it enough to understand where the author was going wrong and how to fix it.

None of that here, I'm afraid.

Yes the line delivery is quick. I am hard of hearing and notorious for having trouble following conversation. There were a few moments where I had some trouble, but overall, I enjoyed it and missed little (often ignoring the CC). I thought the dialogue was some of the best I've heard in a while. One of the strong points here was the insightful conversations about Romance writing. Another example worthy of note is the teasing at the spa. Girlfriends teasing the lead female about her new romance is in every rom/com and it is usually trite and cliche. Not here. The teasing here was natural. It sounded real.

The other great thing is the chemistry between Kristina Cole and Russell Quinn. There is so much energy and admittedly some of it comes from the fast paced dialogue.

One complaint I have had with many movies on GAC Family where this appeared is lack of tension. Zach as a character may not be exactly "tension" but he is annoying beyond belief and creates some major tension. At one point, Reed describes him pretty well and I'm with Reed in not being able to figure out what Ivy ever saw in him. By the end of the movie, Ivy would be justified to slap Zach silly.

Another complaint I've frequently had with GACF is background music. In this movie, I only noticed that background a couple of times briefly and not overwhelmingly, so I have to give this movie a pass on that complaint.

To sum up. The acting is good and the chemistry is fantastic. But the real gem is the writing. Perhaps the line delivery is a bit fast, but the script is superb in big and small ways. I look forward to watching this again in the future.

Definitely recommend, it was funny, well written. The cast was new to me, but want to watch more of them. It was beautifully filmed on location. It shows people recognizing their mistakes and apologizing, which's a rare occurrence in this day and age. It involves family members sharing and caring for each other, giving each other constructive support and encouragement, as it should be. I would watch anything from director and cast. Movie is not like the violent, horror language coming out of the Hollywood elite studios today. Wholesome and family friendly, will watch again with my children. Loved it. 10 out of 10.