Marry Me in Yosemite

As a professional photographer this movie is very flawed. Middle of the day glare is not what pro photographers strive for. Backpacking and sleeping in a tent lead to capturing the greatest exposures at sunrise, not in the harsh light portrayed. A coffee table book is made with multiple exposures over time, not just one click and you have it. This could have been so much better with even slight adjustments and thoughts to these details. Cindy's character would have come off so much more mature, and more in keeping with the groundedness of someone who lives in nature. Also, when holding a camera it should not be slightly tilted when creating a landscape image. And don't crop off the top of a mountain!

I typically enjoy Cindy Busby movies. Unfortunately this movie concentrated on an primary agenda that did not include romance of the characters. The line that America's past was not perfect from a Canadian Actor and Canadian production team seems very hypocritical. The scenery in the movie is what carried it. The romantic scenes between the two main characters were overly flimsy with superficial interaction and language. Hallmark seems to be departing from movies that bring us joy and happiness into getting the viewer to see Hallmarks view of the world. I am over 65 so my demographic does not carry a lot of weight.

Cindy Busby has done this movie before. I found her character both clueless and selfish. The conflicts they tried to set up were resolved within the same scene repeatedly. Can she find the reclusive guide (haven't seen him in weeks. But hey, complete stranger, here's directions to his house.) (No I will not help you. Ten seconds later: Okay sure I'll help, but I can't start until next week. Okay I'll start tomorrow.) The script was sorely lacking. There was no palpable chemistry between the leads. If my son hadn't visited Yosemite this summer (we asked him many times, did you see this?) the movie wouldn't have been worth watching. But the scenery was great.

Hallmark almost got it right, almost... I really liked the movie as a whole but there is so much untapped potential. I would like to see Hallmark do a series of multiple movies on this, instead of trying to rush important topics, amongst the main romantic storyline and scenery in 1 hour and 23 minutes.

Particularly the ending was rushed. I won't give anything away but trying to make any kind of heartfelt, meaningful end to the story in under 2 minutes is just a bit futile. I think Hallmark didn't want to take the risk of committing to two movies but it's so compacted that the depth of the story that is hinted at is really just kind of neglected. The romance, the leads' personalities, the leading topic (the making of the photography book in this case), the story of the most important supporting cast, as well as the important topics of conservation and native tribes. A sequel was actually really needed to complete this story and might have given the room to really work out every topic in any kind of meaningful way without sacrificing the romance.

For example: the male lead is passionate about conservation, I would have loved to see some actual scenes with examples. I think the screenwriter really needed more screentime to do the story justice so I think Hallmark should start doing two or three part movies, screened over a couple of weekends in a row, to make these stories informative but easy to watch while keeping the romance.

I do like that Hallmark seems to be focusing on movies where relationships are not built on deceit. It's oddly refreshing to see Hallmark movies where people aren't pretending to be a different person, breaking off agreements left and right, and not focusing storylines on inconsequential bakeoff competitions, corporate developers, and kid birthday parties. I like the idea of learning about topics in an accessible, fun way but Hallmark should really give these things more time so that the scenes can breathe a little bit.

Not the exact same plot, but close enough and Cindy and Christopher have actual chemistry. This movie didn't do it for me, and I won't rehash the story. Others already have done it well. I usually watch Cindy's movies on Hallmark, Lifetime, GAC and streaming (except The Wrong Stepmother...AWFUL), but this was a miss. It wasn't just boring and preachy, but without those elements, you will feel deja vu since it's really not that different from Chasing Waterfalls which I think aired less than a year prior. Or Journey of the Heart.

It's not a new trend, but having rude, prickly, entitled leads needs to go away. Hallmark and Lifetime's "thrillers" do it. What's wrong with a main character that has a pleasant disposition? You catch more flies with honey, but if you let HM tell it, you can treat people however you want and get your way. They'll even fall in love with you in spite of your attitude. It's very annoying and it often makes me want to turn the movie off.

Cindy's best movies are with Christopher and the Darcy movies with Ryan. And the Godwink movie. Loved that. All of her other HM films are really poor in comparison. She's been around a while, but for whatever reason, she doesn't get the good scripts.

This 600 character rule is so annoying when the movie doesn't deserve that much discussion. I can't believe that I'm sitting here typing until the error message disappears. Even with these two sentences, it's still not enough. Good grief. Ok there it is. Finally.