Zoya

If you like Danielle Steele, you'll like this.

Hmmm.

No, that's not enough. How about, if you have a high tolerance for predictable nonsense then you might enjoy this?

Personally I only watched it because of Bruce Boxleitner, star of "Babylon 5". As you will no doubt realize if you have seen this, that is not really a valid reason for staying for the duration!

Ah well, it's (very) soapy but it's a fair enough way to waste a couple of hours.

I saw this movie just yesterday on "Liftetime", and immediately I wanted to know where I could buy it. I was attracted to it at first because of Melissa Gilbert, as she is my favorite actress, but the uniqueness and romance of the film is what kept me interested. I enjoy love stories, and this was a wonderful one. It gave me a new understanding of what effect war has on family and friends of those who fight in it. I truly enjoyed this movie, I recommend it very highly.

I have always liked Melissa Gilbert and have watched every movie she is in, whenever possible. I especially liked this movie as Melissa was starring with her husband Bruce Boxleitner. This is a feel good movie of triumph over adversity. Melissa is great with her accent as a Russian Countess and actually losing her accent as the years roll by. If you want to curl up to a chick flick with no violence or swearing, then this is the movie for you. Sometimes us women don't want death and blood and gore in a movie, we just want a simple love story about a woman who is strong enough to live in a man's world. I loved this movie and hope that Melissa makes more of this calibre. Thank you Melissa Gilbert for your hard work.

Well, it is. A very romanticized version of life of aristocrats in exile. The funniest moment was when Zoya revealed that she brought the Faberge egg with her into Communist Russia. It would have been confiscated on the border as a national treasure, she wouldn't even have been compensated.

Zoya herself has too many late-20th century values for my tastes. Like her wanting to be a dancer, when most dancers of her culture and era were, in fact, courtesans. Her marrying a jewish man, while tsarist russia was very antisemitic. Well, it's a cute fairy tale anyway.

OK not EVERY Danielle Steele story is the same, but enough of them are that you know what's coming. Tragedy, triumph, death, birth, war, precipitous rises and falls and rises agains, maybe a kidnapping or crash, that sort of thing. The heroine always has hair that is platinum blonde, jet black, or red. No dirty blondes or chestnut browns. She (Steele) has an often misplaced crush on the Aristocracy, even if said class and even actual characters perpetrated horrors or were just plain horrible (I speak of historic figures, not her fictionalized ones, but still). Never mind that, nothing to see here. I'll always have a soft spot for Gilbert, but she is miscast because frankly she isn't beautiful. Attractive, but not beautiful. And they have her cast as a supposed 17-year-old? Just no. I didn't know it was Jennifer Garner playing her daughter. Interesting. She also looks too old for the role, but I guess that's what happens when you have to age as the story progresses. WTH is Diana Rigg doing in this? Nice costumes. Also, I love the guy who played Simon. He's a doll. I think he also played Frank Sinatra in something.