The Note

The search for the owner of the note by a newspaper columnist, that is believed to have come from and airplane crash touches the lives of all who read. The journey to search out the intended recipient has many little turns that keep your interest. Perhaps the biggest changes take place with the reporter. There is also a little conflict as a national television news reporter is trying to steal the story. There is additional personal conflict in the life of the columnist that comes to light as the movie progresses. The many elements come together to create a heartwarming film. I rated it at a nine rather than a ten, just because there were a few moments where the acting didn't seem quite on, and there were a few small elements out of place, but on the whole they distracted little from the overall story. This tale of loss, broken families, past mistakes, and most importantly forgiveness and love, definitely deserves a place in your viewing schedule.

I rate this a "7" if you're watching this on a DVR (digital video recorder) and a "6" if not. Basically, this story starts out good, gets cheesy in the middle and is way overdone at the end. If you're armed with the ability to skip through some highly predictable corny stuff in the middle, it's kind of interesting to watch. A saving grace of the movie is that there's a great twist at the end.

Basically, the movie is about a journalist who's about to lose her column "The Heart Healer" due to low readership. While pondering her situation at the ocean, she happens upon a washed up note from a plane that just crashed nearby. She begins to write about her search for the intended recipient and the movie progresses from there.

While it sounds good on the surface, it gets a little cheesy when everyone she meets is somehow "touched" and for the most part "reformed" by the note. For a lot of people, this middle section can be a bit too sappy.

Still, the movie is not "so" bad that I would say it's not worth watching. If you have a DVR, you can spare yourself from some of the scenes by fast-forwarding - and enjoy the overall story line. If not, I'd say it's a bit too hard to sit through without changing the channel.

The storyline had so much potential. This could have been a blockbuster movie but in the end, your left feeling it was made for TV and was on a tight production schedule. I teared up a couple times but way too often I was left disappointed by the character development or dialogue. Many of the situations were not believable or lacked the gravity of the moment. Many elements just happened for the sake of continuity but seemed forced and kept me from being drawn into the movie. So many instances that were highly emotional and the actors were not reflecting a convincible or honest level of emotion. Good but not great. I can't recommend it.

Poorly written story that's internally inconsistent, amongst other problems, including the dialog and acting.

Clichés: now, let's write another movie filled with clichés in an hour to dump on TV so the station can sell ad-time to holiday card makers. Halmark and others are losing money to the more enjoyable and personal emails, videos, and photos that can be shared directly without trying to find and pay for a card that sort-of says what you're really trying to say. So, they basically pay for movie length ads, in addition to the more well-known TV shows employing more obvious product placement.

The story had potential as a concept, but it's clearly motivated by the desire to promote and sell other things. In short, it's one more reason to limit your TV watching to PBS and Comedy Central and to demand some form of rebate system for the time wasted watching such simplistic stories.

The start is a bit slow but don't give up on it, once it gets rolling it delivers. Genie Francis is good. I would disagree that this is poorly written. I thought Francis and McGinley's parts were well acted. For what it is, basically a Christmas movie, I'm not sure what more the viewer would expect?