Anything for Love

In Chicago, Katherine Benson (Erika Christensen) is a driven CEO of a successful family property developer company. Everybody is concerned about her dating life. She has been nominally dating Charles Hodges but she figures that he wants to take over the company from her and her father. Jack Cooper (Paul Greene) is a charming honest guy. He's happy to be a nurse but all the girls look down on his job. Kate gets pushed into internet dating by her assistant and switching profiles with her. Jack decides to do the same but his immoral friend changes his profile. They fall for each other but the lies are inevitably uncovered.

It's Hallmark. The leads are beautiful. They would make beautiful babies. The premise comes out of some sort of sitcom misunderstanding and awkward lies. It's not the best. It would help if Kate isn't dating that jerk. At the very least, she needs to break up with him. The attitude about male nurses seems very outdated and oddly universal. Once the father goes to the hospital, there is no reason to not tell the truth except it is needed for story construction reasons. The best friend Reggie Le Duca is annoying and Debbie is completely out of his league. The obvious move is for him to lie about his job and Debbie falls for it. The movie doesn't do that and I hate it even more for it. It could have tied into the original premise. The premise is problematic for many reasons, mostly since either person could have told the truth at any time. His reasoning after discovering the truth is problematic as well. It's all a little problematic although I do like the two lead actors. There are surprisingly deep moments like Kate accidentally sideswipes Debbie with a comment. Even that scene could have done more. Despite liking the actors and the characters, there is lots that need some massaging.

Hallmark congratulations... A strong female lead in a wonderfully developed story. And the character was in the mid range of the 30s in age. So maturity was central to the theme of this movie. So few characters today and movies for women are mature and successful and strong. Please hallmark please develop scripts for women of all ages not just the young and "innocent". And please let's not have scenes where bosses their employees to acquiesce to their wishes with a promise of promotion in order to get what they want. That's almost like forced labor. We need employees to be appreciated for their gifts and celebrated for their talent.

No matter who we are, we all experience prejudice. This movie covers issues I see a lot - sexism, agism, singleism, jobism, statusism and financialism. Yes not all those are proper words, but they should be because, as we see in the film, prejudice has a negative effect on all kinds of people. I really didn't enjoy the start and nearly gave up, but it is necessary in order for the middle to be so warm and the ending to work.

On the most part, while uneven, the 2016 Countdown to Valentine's Day Hallmark batch was not bad at all. 'Dater's Handbook' was the only real misfire, with 'Valentine Ever After' being particularly good. The premise for 'Anything for Love' didn't really sound that promising, actually it sounded dumb and unrealistic, but still it anyway as a Hallmark completest who saw plenty of good and more 2016 Hallmark films and who likes Paul Greene in most of his work.

'Anything for Love' was not bad at all and actually quite enjoyed it. It is far from perfect and doesn't completely avoid the traps that the premise had, but it surprisingly did not turn out as over silly and unrealistic as it sounded on paper. As far as the 2016 Countdown to Valentine's Day films go, it is not on the same level as 'Valentine Ever After' but it is infinitely better than 'Dater's Handbook' (not that that is particularly hard, a film would have to be near irredeemable to be worse than that).

There are things that don't quite come off. The story is admittedly often very silly and some serious suspension of disbelief is needed. Especially in the contrived final act, where a lot of awkward and forced dialogue can be heard and where some characters are at their most frustrating in their vague and rash decision making.

Did find a few characters annoying and less than subtly played, particularly Reggie, and the ending was unpleasantly syrupy and far too neat (undeserved too). The story can be very predictable and can drag at times.

However, the acting is fine on the whole with very appealing performances from both Greene, amiable and subtly charismatic as ever, and Erika Christensen who isn't robotic or affected. Their characters aren't too perfect or have overblown flaws, and their chemistry is genuine and sweet while not exactly on fire. It is well filmed with lovely scenery, while the music isn't too constant or over-scored.

Enough of the writing is fun and light-hearted as well as charming and heartfelt. The story is very flawed, but doesn't take itself too seriously and doesn't treat the subject as too much of a joke. Did appreciate how it covered some very relevant and important issues, not many Hallmark films tackle prejudice/discrimination but 'Anything for Love' does and more than decently.

Concluding, decent if unexceptional. 6/10.

Disagree with others bad reviews. This movie works !! I throughly enjoyed this one. It has heart! Hallmark got it right on this movie!