What I Did for Love

If you like sappy romantic movies with shallow plots and bad acting you will probably like this one. But I'm a country boy and I can tell you that nothing the rancher family did was realistic in the least little bit. Allowing a clearly antagonistic, hateful and spiteful ex-boyfriend to hang around after he deliberately let the cattle herd out to roam the desert with predators around all because he wanted to frame the current boyfriend? He should have been arrested. The father who treats his daughter's boyfriend like a criminal? It was beyond crude and rude, I would run away from that family as fast as my legs could carry me. The whole movie was filled with improbable sub-plots like this.

Every time a new scene appeared, I found myself shaking my head incredulously. That just isn't how real people act, especially not ranchers. Farmers and ranchers are real people with real values and don't engage in the kinds of petty big-city actions prevalent throughout this movie. Another Hallmark stinker clearly written by clueless Hollywood writers who don't know how the real world works.

At least the girl was very pretty.

Obviously some people care more about the acting than the whole point of the movie.

This is a VERY positive movie showing that one does NOT have to be set in their ways and can change. The father DID NOT like Sadie's boyfriend until he saved him from a wolf and survived outside overnight in the cold mountains.

The theme of people being able to change is a theme which is positive and is more important than how great the acting was. I didn't care to observe the acting critically because I was drawn into the movie.

After all I thought that's what good acting was .. being able to draw your audience into your story. At least that is what our director told us...a director who does this for a living.

I recommend this highly for those who are fed up with the normal Hollywood fare and want a movie that your whole family could watch and admire.

James is lost & they think he drove to LA..Wasn't his car outside?

OK, it's just a Hallmark movie, I shouldn't take it too seriously and a lot of the production crew will be on autopilot, but I wanted more nuance than this. I'm a little surprised at some of the "pro family" reviews as well. The main theme seemed to be "be as obnoxious to your unfamiliar guests as possible and maybe your daughter will marry someone like you".

This hardly seems the stuff of Christmas sentiment (unless you count The Grinch). I just couldn't buy into the bigoted hick stereotype as being gruff but lovable, just unpleasant. The daughter's role seemed to consist of smiling weakly while her boyfriend was metaphorically spat on from all sides. If the roles were reversed and the boyfriend's parents made her take ice cold baths every morning and strip naked to serve drinks to their society friends, somehow the family friendly motif would be put into sharp relief. Everybody's family could be this loathsome to strangers if they really tried, but why would you celebrate it? Why would you reward their climb from boorish vindictiveness to grudging acceptance as attaining a state of grace and forgiveness?

I know that TV movies tend to have broad-brush plot lines with little room for subtlety, but the creative contempt and continuous humiliation that the daughter's family put him through just irritates after a while and is too obviously there simply to hang the sub-plots from. No one would keep putting up with this level of abuse with little or no help from their partner and the unreality reminds you that this is just a product. You can't lose yourself in something this caricatured.

Weak and predictable. I love the Sierra Nevada's so I continued to watch so I could see the Mountains and Mt. Whitney in some background scenes. The movie was kinda bad though. "Dad's" acting was horrible and so was Sadies. It got old fast because it was not believable at all. The night in the cave was useless and added no benefit to the film at all. Come on - Ranchers come home and unsaddle their horses and they don't notice the only horse left behind is gone - with a house guest also missing but his car is still there..And she calls and leaves him a message at this apt...Just hooky and corny. A sequel - I sure hope not. Again, the mountains were the best part of the picture! Absolutely beautiful.