The Engagement Plot

This was an okay movie that had the potential to be better than it was. But I still enjoyed it somewhat. The 2 leads are some of my favorites, so even though I didn't see any really chemistry between them, they're still good actors and carried the story pretty well. Sadly, I'm so turned off by the Bachelor franchise in general that the first bit of the movie was cringy for me - but pretty well done, superficiality and all. Good performance by Hannah's Dad as well, liked his down to earth task with Hannah. The editing was choppy at times, just not as smooth and professional as it should have been making it hard to follow the plot.

And now to the biggest issue for me - Rachel Boston is an excellent actress and is always chic and stylish, no matter what type of character she's playing. This time she was consistently dressed in frumpy clothing and over-sized sloppy coats that leads me to believe that she was probably pregnant during filming. Come on, these movies take 2 weeks to film - was it not possible to carve out that much time when she had her normal figure? It was almost as distracting as the overdone hats.

A cutie of a romance movie, nicely formulaic but enough of a difference that's it's delightfully watchable but ruined by making the lead wearing bizarro cowboy hats. She's great, the lead boy is great, the dad is great and the driver character is great but not the hats! Why did they make her wear the hats??? Overall, it's pretty nice but the costume department needs to have a good hard look at itself and realise that some costumes can be really really distracting.i found myself cheering for the hatless scenes and forgetting about the actual plot. It's worth a watch though, it's a good break from Christmas Tree Farms and the usual plots.

As a faithful tv movie viewer, this film left me sadly disappointed. The story was predictable and unoriginal. And, while this is the comfort zone one expects from a made-for-tv movie, this story felt contrived and forced. One can always clearly see how a plot will develop and how it will end, but this one seemed to cross a line into being a bit too predictable.

A few of the secondary characters (the tv show contestants) seemed to be over-acting in order to define their roles.

Add to that, the distracting issues of Rachel Boston's trademark giggle between spoken lines, and the fact that she was visibly quite pregnant, and spent the film hiding her pregnancy with big pocketbooks, coats held closed, and fluffy, billowy dresses.

In addition to his leading man's script conflict, poor Trevor Donovan looked visibly uncomfortable throughout. He's a wonderful, attractive actor, a reliable leading man. But one got the feeling he was not enthusiastic with this role.

And as a faithful fan, I will remain true to made-for-movies, but I will expect more honesty and quality in future stories.

This is a movie which can be divided into two halves. A bad half and a pretty good one.

Is it bad acting when it is deliberate? The acting and the story were deliberately exaggerated in the first half. There was a definite hit on the romantic reality show genre. The actors all seemed so unnatural in this part. While there were definite aspects of the story that were spot on, such as Kelcie, I find it hard to believe the scenario of what was happening to Wil's business could really happen. But that seemed necessary to set up the romantic story in the second half and the engagement plot.

Rachel Boston has a very appealing personality and I have always enjoyed her in this kind of role. She has very nice chemistry with Trevor Donovan. I felt the attraction between them. Unfortunately, the setup took up so much screen time, basically the whole first half of the movie, and then there were a few other distractions in the second half so in total, their relationship screen time was diluted.

The story in the second half was more natural even with the conflict and twist. Not a huge twist. I'm sure some people saw it coming. It was obvious the deception would come out, but I didn't see how that would happen.

As to Rachel Boston's figure, it sure looked obvious how the director was trying to hide it. Boston welcomed a baby in early 2022 and I'm not sure when this was filmed. Either way, it should be irrelevant if reasonable efforts are made to minimize it. And it is done quite often.

There is a religious aspect to the story. Hannah is called Holy Hannah for a reason. This movie treats her faith sympathetically but without a lot of preaching or Bible thumping. More than anything, it emphasizes that Hannah makes choices based on a certain moral code, especially with the ultimate aim of honesty. And she is also allowed to make mistakes because she ends up taking responsibility despite tremendous embarrassment.

Overall, I have a positive take on this movie. The bad half is deliberately used to set up and emphasize the good half. Much of that is thanks to Boston.

Six months ago, William stole Hanna's heart and shattered it in front of millions of people on a reality TV dating show. And now the big-wig CEO is back on Hanna's home turf in Minnesota and wants her to forgive him? Fat chance of that. But life is swirling around faster than snow in a blizzard, and despite her objections, teaming up with William seems like the only option to rescue her reputation. William has never regretted anything more than the day he gave that ill-fated interview for the reality show, The Price of Love. But while he can't change the past, he's determined to fix the future. He just needs to convince Hanna to forgive him-and pretend to be engaged with him.

Trevor Donovan was a great choice for Will.