Love in Zion National: A National Park Romance

This movie was average. I'm not a big fan of Miss Busby, her acting leaves a lot to be desired. The scenery was beautiful. I was a little taken back that she never wore a hat out in the sun and the heat of the day. She took very little food or water on her six day journey with the park ranger. Many people have complained about the age difference between Busby and the leading man who turns out to be her love interest... They're only seven years apart. I take offence to that since my husband and I are eight years apart. She doesn't look like a senior citizen she's a young woman of 41 and was actually not even 40 when she made this movie. Ageism has become quite a problem in the United States.

Beautiful desert backdrop to this Hallmark romance which was heavy on an Anasazi mystery. I love the Southwest and I am really enjoying Hallmark highlighting National Parks. I also really love Native American culture, but I am by no means an expert. I was left questioning things in this film however...like aren't Kachinas a Hopi tradition? Wouldn't it be cultural appropriation if the Anasazi are making and-or selling Kachinas? Also, I appreciated that the grandmother, played wonderfully by Monique Filips, mentions the three sister and how that was a way of planting used by the natives...but didn't explain why (how one steals nitrogen out of the soil and one puts nitrogen back in...).

The story is about a museum worker who upon unboxing donated artifacts (three Anasazi wedding vases), determines that there is a missing vase and with the donor's journal goes to Zion National Park to find the missing vessel. There she is assigned a park ranger as a guide and this is how she meets "native" Adam Proudstar, his technology loving brother Tate and his grandmother Kaya. These three are the best part of this film which is more of a mystery than a romance.

I recommend this film to mystery lovers and those who love the southwest...romantics might be disappointed...or they might also fall in love with the Proudstar brothers!

6.7 stars.

Nothing stands out as this being a re-watchable Hallmark duplicate of a duplicate plot. I feel sorry for Busby who is cast in most of the Hallmark national park, state park, outdoorsy movie sets. I can't differentiate between them after a while. Was this already done in 'Marry Me in Yosemite', or 'Warming up to You', or 'Chasing Waterfalls', or 'Love in the Forecast'? Take your pick. Here is a quote from my review of 'Chasing Waterfalls': "Trust your instincts, because YES, you've seen this movie before..."

This is a movie about a single woman who works at a museum, and let's face it she aint getting any younger (Busby looks really good for her age, actually). She goes on a hunt for a Native American artifact to complete a set of four vases that a money grubbing man is trying to claim and sell on the market (if and when he discovers the secret). It's an interesting plot, but it's too generic and lacks adventure and mystery. It's basically just a couple of people walking in the hills talking about lore and stuff and some quasi native history that is not believable. The park ranger's grandmother looks about 50 years old, and he's like 30.

I don't know, there is a lot of lost potential here. The end was good, however it's about preservation of Native American vases from hundreds of years ago, which had a lot of missed potential (like I said), but the romance was lacking. However, the cinematography was brilliant and the ending was uplifting enough for a higher rating than originally planned.

It appears that Hallmark planned this production with a triple intent: shell out their weekly romantic flick, while highlighting Utah's natural beauty, and paying homage to a relevant form of Native American heritage. Quite an ambitious , perhaps too ambitious, project. It would have required a far less superficial understanding of, and a deeper respect for the subject. The profound historical absurdity of the story has been well exposed by two previous reviewers. What's more, the misuse of traditional elements, thrown into the movie, rather than paying homage, makes it unwillingly offensive. The producers could have elected to create fictitiuos names for the "Anasazi tribe" and symbols of their culture. After all, the entire plot is a fantasy. Isn't it regularly done, in movies with Royals of nonexistent Kingdoms, somewhere in Europe? Instead, they chose real traditions and names and even conferred a major role to a "Kachina" doll. Now, just a few Nations could rightly identify as descendant of the Ancient Puebloans and carry on with this tradition. The Proudstars must share into Hopi or Sio (Zuni) heritage, where the Kachina [a Hopi word) tradition mostly belongs.

Here is where things do not square out.

The rudimentary vases that play a role in the movie, share little in common with the much finer Hopi or Tewa-Hopi pottery, adorned with very different motifs and patterns, still similar to those produced centuries ago. Grandma Proudstars lives in an environment, filled with generic southwestern styled decorations and fake-Pendleton blankets, that suggest nothing of Hopi making or that would be cherished by a person purportedly deeply immerse in her traditional spirituality. Kachina dolls were and are carved in the image of spiritual beings who appear in ceremonial dances, to teach children and women how to recognize them. They were not used as amulets. It is hard to believe a true Hopi would give one as a "guiding spirit", let alone to a complete outsider! The doll in the movie, itself, is not a Kachina. It is a horrible imitation with mask and garments that do not fit the appearance of any of the about 300 authentic ones which are known, beside, apparently, not being carved out of cottonwood roots, as tradition dictates. It suspiciously look like one of the cheapest tourist-fakes produced in spades by Navajos. Which is ironic, when one considers that the term "Anasazi"is a Navajo etymon for "Ancient Enemy" and the Hopi Kachina that represents the neighboring Navajo is named "Tasup", for "Head-basher".

Coming to the other intents of the production, the romantic story is poorly eventful and moderately insipid.

Zion Park, on the contrary, is as beautiful as expected and the filming renders it justice. For this accomplishment alone, the movie may be worth a look, and my rating was not completely negative.

There are several negative reviews here that smash the movie for its concept, using the Anasazi, an ancient tribe, as a modern day inhabitant of the Utah area in and near Zion. So I will not comment on that, just say it represents fiction and discuss the movie itself.

Cindy Busby is Lauren, the Denver museum curator, she has a long attachment to Zion National Park from childhood when she would visit with her now deceased mother. Now an older lady has died and willed her three ancient Anasazi pottery pieces to the museum. But her grand nephew shows up, announces he will contest the will. He doesn't care about the historical value, he thinks they are worth a lot of money.

So Lauren studies the designs and figures the set had originally been four, one was missing and she would find it in a remote section of Zion, somehow this would also prevent the set being taken away. There she meets a park guide assigned to help her, and keep her safe, David Gridley as native American, Adam Proudstar.

Things develop from there, my wife and I really enjoyed the scenery, we had been to Zion but were not able to explore it much. The movie itself, it is OK but not particularly good. It was decent diversion after our usual Saturday evening steak dinner with a bottle of red Bordeaux, nothing more.

Streaming on Peacock.