I gave this movie 10 stars because I like that it is about marriage and also offers some great examples of double standards.
After watching 'When Duty Calls' the first time I deleted it from my DVR, but when I saw it on Pixl again, I recorded it and have watched it multiple times.
It's not that it's a perfect movie; I like that it moves quick and has some true-to-life marriage scenarios that aren't overly sensationalized.
I also like that this is not a pure romance movie; this is life after the courtship; this is life during marriage for two couples in different phases of their marriages.
The two marriages are the newlywed couple Ellie and Martin, and the retired couple Gary and Carol (Ellie's parents). The two careers are Ellie's as a fresh graduate from the police academy, and Martin's as a teacher who has a master's degree in history.
Unexpected job layoffs, hiring freezes, finding work, moving in with parents (or children moving in), retirement, and health problems are all experiences that can happen in a marriage, whether to newlyweds or older couples; these experiences aren't necessarily wanted but they are part of life for many couples.
Having someone to get through the good and the bad with is what marriage is all about, and both couples recognize how important their partnerships are when unwanted experiences happen in the movie; this is what I like about the movie that I don't think should be overlooked due to Ellie's bad examples.
What I don't care for about the Ellie character is that she does not put her marriage first.
While Ellie loves her husband and doesn't leave him because of a few bumps in the newlywed road, I believe she loves her career more because she isn't willing to follow her husband wherever his career takes him; instead she expects Martin to work around her career goals when he receives a job offer that she doesn't want him to take due to having to relocate. I have no doubt that if it was reversed and Martin refused to move for his wife's career it would be looked at as sexist, yet it's acceptable when Ellie isn't willing to move for her husband.
Also, Ellie doesn't talk to Martin about her plans to become a volunteer; rather she announces that she's going to volunteer without first discussing it with him when it's a decision that impacts both of them since she opts to volunteer rather than find work that pays. If Martin had decided to volunteer his time without talking to Ellie first, I again have no doubt that would not have gone over as well as Ellie's decision to volunteer without telling Martin first.
So, while Martin finds work that pays and has nothing to do with his degree, Ellie spends time as a volunteer to prove her dedication to the public service sector for which she was trained in the hopes that she gets the deputy job of her dreams; this is an awful example of how to work as partners in a marriage, and even though it makes me shake my head in disapproval, I appreciate the double standard that a wife's career goals are more important than a husband's career which is now commonplace in programs such as this and commonly overlooked.
Had Ellie been willing to put her career goals on hold in order to find work that pays, the same as Martin did, I would give her more credit.
Of course everything works out well in the end for the newlyweds and the retirees, but Ellie's behavior leaves a bad taste in my mouth as a former career woman who has learned from experience that a two-career household isn't all it's cracked up to be; because sooner or later one of the careers becomes more important than the other, and it's incorrect to assume that the wife's career is more important but that is what is demonstrated in 'When Duty Calls'.
PS - The one-sentence storyline description of this movie on IMDb doesn't do the movie any justice and is inaccurate since Martin isn't a volunteer and it's not the police department where Ellie volunteers. Did whoever wrote it even watch the movie?
