Autumn in the City

I saw Aimee in My Christmas family tree and thought she was amazing. That was the first thing I had ever seen her in. So I was excited to watch her in this one, and I don't know what happened to her in this one, but from the first second that she was on the screen, she lost her likability. There was also zero chemistry with her costar. It's almost like the casting director was happy with her, so they did not worry about it even having tryouts for any of the other parts. I've only done this a couple of times but here I am halfway through the show writing a review for a show that I absolutely wish I had not wasting my time on.

This Hallmark romance takes place in New York City. Piper (Aimee Teegarden) moves from the Midwest to NYC to find herself. She doesn't know what career path to follow (though viewers can discern her eventual career immediately), so she temps at various jobs. When she meets her neighbor, Austin (Evan Roderick), things are not very cordial, but we know where this is going. Austin's dream is to write children's books, but he has put that option on a back burner.

The problem with this film is the script. The dialogue is stilted and unrealistic, particularly in the early going. If you can get past that, the rest of the story is endurable. Just don't expect any great plot twists.

The story has bizarre moments. Early on, some were even slightly cringe worthy. What part of "be seen and not heard" did you not get, Piper? For a bit, I thought Piper was going to turn me off. To be honest, she mellowed a little as the movie went on which is not unusual. Writers like to establish some antagonism early on and once that is gotten past, the characters drop the really rough edges.

Piper is from a very small town background, but this is not your typical girl next door. She has some of the better qualities of that GND but she's much more than that. She knows how to be appealing to people, even virtual strangers, but she isn't at all fake. It is unrealistic how naive she is the way she is approaching finding a career, but as a viewer, I had to ignore that so that I could enjoy what was truly appealing about her character. And Piper is the reason I loved this movie.

Aimee Teagarden and Evan Roderick have great chemistry. Their dialogue helps. It's fun and interesting.

The story seems to ramble a bit, but in fact it's right where it wants to be.

Another thing that really irritated me early was Austin's mom. It's pretty bad when your mom doesn't let you order what you want for lunch even after you bring it up. He's a full grown adult, even if for a while he doesn't act like one.

One development from the latter half of the movie is totally predictable, but who Piper turned to totally surprised me.

I look forward to watching this again in the future because I'm pretty sure I'll pick up things I missed the first time.

This was fairly watchable despite a few troublesome aspects. One of which was the mismatch in the casting. Aimee Teagarden is an attractive and relatively youthful Hallmark leading lady and Evan Roderick as her love interest was a fresh new face and did well. Unfortunately, together, the pair didn't work. Aimee is in her early 30s playing an almost 30 year-old. Evan Roderick is 6 years younger and could pass for 17. So, for me the chemistry was off.

Piper has escaped from her hometown and her over-protective parents to pursue her dreams in New York City. Unfortunately, she doesn't have any dreams other than escaping from her dead end life in Iowa or Omaha or whatever. This leads to a series of temp jobs where she hopes that her destiny will hit her "like a bolt of lightening." She is almost 30 years old. Honey, if lightening hasn't struck by now, it's not going to. She is pretty oblivious because her future career is right in front of her and is obvious to the alert viewer. Big Clue: she never goes anywhere without her sketchpad and she sketches and colors non-stop. She meets cute Austin who is an aspiring Children's book author, despite his egomaniacal world famous journalist mother who relentlessly badgers him to become a world famous journalist just like her.

After throwing amazing opportunity after amazing opportunity back in the faces of all of the nice New Yorkers so anxious to hand out cool jobs, Piper finally gets struck by lightening, figuratively. She hooks up professionally and personally with Austin, who has shockingly landed a publishing deal for a whole series of books with Piper as the illustrator. After a lot of ups and downs, Piper and Austin have their dream careers and a relationship. There were a lot of fallen leaves in this one, but no pumpkins unless you count pumpkin spice lattes. The couple's career trajectories were fantastical and should probably come with a disclaimer lest New York becomes invaded with aspiring Midwesterners hoping to be just like Piper.

Obviously romance writers are not expected to churn out "Citizen Kane," but couldn't they at least consult the dictionary? Worse than the fact that Roderick's character uses the term "hoi polloi" incorrectly (he uses it to refer to the rich, elite of society - but it means the rabble, the commoners), but no one corrected it. Does NO ONE on this production have a vocabulary? Or access to a dictionary. I wanted mindless entertainment, but...there are limits. Also, I agree with the reviewer that said the leads were mismatched - it bordered on a reverse "Lolita" - he didn't look old enough to drive, let alone drink, and while she's not old by any means, she looked ancient next to him. Creepy.