Holiday for Heroes

Audrey (Melissa Claire Egan), a partner in running a cafe, has been exchanging letters for a year with soldier Matt (Marc Blucas). We see them finally meet and how this has an impact on both their lives and the lives of those around them. Both a romantic drama and a salute to the armed forces, you see the story play out from the perspectives of both protagonists, which is nice. It's a good production which is very engaging with great performances, especially from the two leads.

It is just one of very good Hallmark Christmas films. Because it propose more than the nice story, the familiar actors, the sweet humor and the chaines of cliches. A good story about militaries on operational fronts, comunity, siblings, small business, coffee and a story of love wise crafted. A real special film from Hallmark because it ignores some borders, defines a not easy theme and gives a decent , in delicate manner, portrait of the characters.

My wife and I enjoy Hallmark movies, they are predictable with clean characters and clean story lines. This one is better than most of them. The end credits have many references to places in Connecticut, so it surely was actually filmed there.

Small town 30-something lady runs a small shop, which includes coffee from her own bean-roasting operation in the old family barn. She sends "care packages" to her brother stationed overseas. One 40-something, career sargent becomes the beneficiary of some of her goodies and they begin a pen pal type of letter writing habit.

As luck would have it he gets stationed to her area for his last weeks while he decides if he will re-enlist or not. Naturally they hit it off but an obstacle is his job offer to teach at a military school in Virginia, and she is attached to her home area.

Lots of other themes run through the story, most of them involving Christmas Holiday planning for the big yearly festival. The script is very well written and the actors are very authentic in their roles. This is, to us, one of the better Hallmark movies we have watched.

At home on DVD from our public library.

It's so nice to see one of these films that concentrates on the forces element, rather than the trite little references thrown in here and there in other ones.

I actually cried at the end, because it was easy to get behind the cause and I'm not usually one to get soppy about the forces, because I believe that they have chosen their job as have the tinker and the tailor, but you can really see here how important these celebrations are to those left at home and how important the homecomings are for both parties.

Marc Blucas is natural and lovely again and the female lead (Moley, moley, moley) is not one of the annoying ones.

A great cast all around really and a lovely story delivered appropriately and with style.

Hallmark movies can only be judged against other Hallmark movies. They are a special genre. I wished I lived in Hallmarkland.