Hallmark just signed Aimee Teegarden (one of the talented stars of the great TV series Friday Night Lights) to an exclusive multi-picture deal. That was a smart move because she is quite charming and very likable, as she demonstrated in Once Upon a Christmas Miracle, New Year's Resolution, and My Christmas Wish List. But she may have been miscast here as Elle, a valedictorian and high achieving tech expert, happily immersed in the Big Tech culture of Northern California. Inexplicably, and despite a high profile and demanding job, Elle has continued to embrace her role as class president long after graduating high school and goes back home (3,000 miles from work) to oversee a reunion.
The movie begins with a scene that seemed like an homage to the movie Carrie, and then jumps ahead 15 years. Tanner Novlan plays Devin, a popular high school goof off who became a single dad and took over his parents' successful event planning company. If he looks familiar, it's because Novlan previously played a struggling actor who couldn't remember his lines in a Liberty Mutual commercial ("Liberty Biberty").
The romance between Elle and Devin seemed more than unlikely (they live 3,000 miles away from each other and she loves her Big Tech career in California). But Yasmeen Kelders was great as Devin's daughter Skyler who, rather conveniently, is presented as a young tech whiz who knew of Elle's achievements. One of the best things about the movie is its promotion of women in STEM fields. And I really liked the father daughter relationship (Devin's support of Skyler's dreams was sweet).
But the estranged real estate couple didn't ring true for me, either as a couple breaking apart or afterwards (I blame the writing, which was weak). There were other problems too. For example, would a successful hot shot tech executive discuss highly sensitive work issues during a FaceTime call on speaker in public and then simply put the phone down (and ignore the urgent matter) when a high school crush walks up?
And what woman would take her gay stylist from Indianapolis to her 15 year high school reunion in Connecticut? I respect and admire Hallmark's commitment to diversity, but if you're going to add a flamboyant gay character to a Hallmark movie, he should be as funny as Dan Levy from Schitt's Creek (not easy to do). This guy was just annoying and there was no reason for him to even be in town. Hallmark's gay characters don't need to be over the top caricatures for Hallmark to be inclusive.
And as much as I like Aimee Teagarden, her character was unrealistic and a bit off putting. Her high school crush (who took a cheap shot at Devin for remaining a local) reduced her to acting like a silly schoolgirl which didn't jive with her successful no nonsense career as a tech executive. She was also very dismissive of Devin for the first hour, blew off her understandably concerned assistant Alma and, in one of the sadder scenes, acknowledged blowing off Samantha after high school when she reached out to Elle. And her Big Speech was mostly about her.
But the most annoying aspect of the movie was how it dealt with Elle's impressive career and her position at a company called ZIgg. She was apparently the CTO of the company and managed its data cloud storage division. She was also featured "on Wired Magazine's 35 under 35 list". And yet the movie never explained what ZIgg does and what went wrong at the company. They also never explained why she never spoke to anyone on the Board or tried calling anyone other than the CEO, and there was no reason to believe she couldn't return to the company just because the CEO was arrested or wouldn't be in high demand at other Bay Area and Silicon Valley tech companies in California (there were no facts given as to why the sins of the CEO would sink the company or taint her).
I should probably give this less than a 6, but I really do like Aimee Teagarden. It's not her fault the story made no sense.
