Mystère et chrysanthèmes

These Hallmark mysteries follow the same basic structure: a female amateur sleuth with a business of some sort that she has with a female partner, and the partner is constantly trying to talk her out of doing investigations on her own; they live in an idyllic small town.

Throw a story at it and it's done.

Brooke Shields stars in "The Flower Shop Mystery: Mum's the Word" for Hallmark. She plays Abby Knight, a widow with a teenage daughter who returns from New York City, where she worked as a lawyer, to her small home town. There she opens a flower shop.

On her opening day, Abby's car is hit by someone whom she learns later may have been fleeing a crime scene where a young man was murdered. She launches her own investigation, but then meets a good- looking ex-soldier (Brennan Elliott) who works as a bartender. The two of them work together.

The cast is of a higher level than the other mysteries, with Shields, Elliott, and Beau Bridges as Abby's father.

They just need to pay a little more attention to the scripts.

There were a series of mysteries some years ago - Jane Doe and Mystery Woman, both of which featured good actresses in the leads and were slower than molasses.

The flower shop, garage sale, and Teagarden mysteries move a little faster and have more energy behind them. They're light fare for someone who doesn't want to think for a couple of hours.

I saw Brooke Shields in person some years ago - even from where I was standing, I could tell first how tall she is, and then how graceful. At 51, she's still a beauty and always nice to see. But these films need to be brought up a notch.

Me and the wife really enjoyed watching this and we recommend it. James Welch Henderson Arkansas 9/12/21.

Compared to some of the newer movies Hallmark is investing in, I really like the storyline and cast interaction on theis series.

Hallmark has recently developed a number of mysteries in which the protagonist is the female owner of a small shop of some kind. These are the Garage Sale Mysteries (5), Murder She Baked (3), Aurora Teagarden (1), and the related Gourmet Detective Mysteries (2). These last two don't quite fit the category, as the protagonist is a cop, not a shop owner, but they are my favorites of the lot, which is probably why I find it so necessary to include them.

The latest addition is A Flower Shop Mystery: Mum's the Word. It is worse than all the eleven movies listed above.

The problem with the movie is not lack of star power. It has bigger names than any of the other 11. Brooke Shields is still appealing at 50, and Brennan Elliot does a decent job. Kate Drummond is sparkling. It's too bad they didn't give her more to do. Beau Bridges, looking better than in several recent appearances, clearly demonstrates that he is the real professional in the cast. But he has an extremely small part. I'd be surprised if he had more than 2 minutes total on-screen time.

It seems that they spent all their budget getting these big names, and a Mercedes for Abby to drive, and had nothing left to hire a screenwriter.

The only reason I give the writing a 2 instead of a zero is that it contains some good puns, a rarity these days, and not present in the other series. But the dialog itself is atrocious: choppy, unrealistic, awkward and poor at conveying the story. (SORRY, THE QUOTES BELOW HAVE BEEN SEVERELY COMPROMISED BY IMDb'S AUTOMATIC FORMATTING.)

It contains such illiteracies as: "re-open up your store."

"His death was very hard on her, and it was for me too."

"I can promise you one thing. Regarding the date. And it will be a date." "Thank you."

And finally, along these lines, "You know what they say, join the Army and see the world." Of course, it should be "Navy."

It contains such discontinuities as "He asked me for money," when Elvis Jones did not do so -- She spontaneously gave him ten whole dollars.

"Did you know they ID'ed the victim?" "(smugly satisfied) Uh-huh. Did you know his name?" "Billy Ryan." "(shocked) What?? When did this happen?" "I won that round, didn't I?"

The dialog is very repetitive.

"Who's that tank commander?" "What?" "Who's that tank commander?" "Oh, that's Sergeant Major Marco Salvare, 75th Army Ranger Unit." "Wow! When? Where?"

And my favorite: "Oh! There's a car!" "Car?" "There's a car!"

A moment later, "What do you see?" "It's an Escalade." "I know it's an Escalade. Who's driving?" "It's Tony Vertucci in the Escalade."

The flow of scenes leaves much to be desired. It's like Goldstein said, "Oh, let's have a scene in the flower shop, and then we can have one in the bar, and then one at her father's house, and then one at the nursery, and then another one at the flower shop, and then another one at the bar, and then one where Marco runs into Abby when she's jogging," without there being any reason or plot requirement to do so. I often found myself apathetic to where they were at the moment and what they were doing (mostly eating).

Many scenes end lamely. Abby comes home to find a wilted, dried-out bouquet on her doorstep. She looks for a note, but there is none. Break to commercial. Bouquet never mentioned again.

"Look, I got a bar to run, so just... good night." "Bye."

"Have a good day, Abby." "Mm-hmm." Break to commercial.

The story is full of idiotic elements. Abby says, "I told my insurance agent to file a claim against Vertucci," which he apparently did, even though she has no evidence, nothing more than a hunch that he was the one who hit her Mercedes and ran.

All the harassment Abby suffers at the hands of a corrupt cop and county commissioner is very prosaic. Little is made of any of it, she mostly ignores it, and there is no tension or suspense whatever associated with it. It is finally all explained away in a couple of sentences in the next-to-last scene.

In that same scene, Abby's DA ex-boyfriend tells her, concerning Elvis Jones's murder, "But, believe me, this part of the investigation is just beginning."

And in an ironic flouting of modern nutritional knowledge: "I've got meatball parm. Four stars on Yelp. We can eat healthy."

The story is not particularly imaginative, which is the flaw of all the 12 movies I speak of here. Their charm results more from the characters and their interaction than from originality of plot. The best along these lines is the Gourmet Detective series, with the banter between Brooke Burns and Dylan Neal a constant delight. The Aurora Teagarden, Murder, She Baked and Garage Sale series also have some good moments.

But the banter in Mum's the Word between Abby and Marco generally falls flat. It is composed of things nobody would ever say, in an order they would never say them, and for most part comes off as just lame. Brooke does what she can to make her character an indomitable force that can't be turned aside, but is severely hampered by the asinine things she has to say.

"You like to meddle, don't you?" "OK, first of all, I hate that word, and... where do we go from here?"

"Think about how happy it makes people." "Is it making you happy?" "Yeah, as a matter of fact, it is." "Good."

There is another Flower Shop Mystery in post-production right now, and one beyond that in the works. Let's hope somebody tossed Hallmark a clue, and that they will be better than this turkey.

This movie makes me feel very old and having nothing to do with the film itself. Seeing Beau Bridges makes me recall seeing him as a child actor, a jungle kid in the film Zamba. Now over 60 years later he's playing Brooke Shields's elderly father in Flower Shop Mystery: Mum's The Word.

Brooke has returned to her small town given up being a high pressure big city lawyer. She's opening a florist's shop with her friend Kate Drummond. On the day of her opening her car gets dinged in a hit and run and she also runs into the guy who took her to the senior prom, Wayne Hard now on the streets as a homeless person.

Later on she finds that Hard is the suspect in the murder of a young man and she just doesn't believe it. Her lawyer instincts kick in especially after Hard is killed.

No mystery here, the perpetrator is truly obvious. The only mystery here is how the incidents are connected and why was the original murder killed. Turns out she was just the right person to solve this case. It has to do with black market flowers and I'll say no more other than it's quite a lucrative racket.

Aiding and abetting Brooke's sleuthing is Brennan Elliott who is a former detective opening up and bar and grille down the street from Brooke's Florist shop. No doubt they will be an item in future films, there were two made, who knows if there will be more.

A nice entry in the Hallmark mystery movie series.