From Friend to Fiancé

I don't like the June Weddings theme and everything related to it, but decided to give this a chance because Jocelyn Hudon is a new face and we'll get to see her soon in the new When Calls the Heart spin off, so...

I didn't love this exactly, it was a different plot. I loved the idea that the main characters were best friends, but some things are just not believable. How did he get engaged and she didn't even know he was dating? Seriously... too much soap opera for me. Kimberly's minions? Come on, Hallmark you can do better.

I personally really liked Jocelyn. I'm getting tired of the same 2 or 3 actresses having ONE movie PER SEASON (and by season I mean, Christmas, June Weddings, Summer, Valentine's etc. Jen Lilley, Danica and Lacey, i'm looking at you). I didn't hate Ryan Paevey but his character was "meh", he was not interesting, at all.

I did get me in one part. The fact that she was willing to let him go... it killed me. And there were some meme worthy times too.

So, I don't get why the reviews are SO negative. This is still Hallmark, you can expect believable and trashy scripts, but it wasn't neither that bad of some award-winning performances.

I liked all the characters--the three leads, in particular, but also the older adults that added to the story. Surprising to see so many disappointed reviews. This is Hallmark Movies! They assure me that romance & love is going to win. And the actors were good, the chemistry was right where it needed to be, and it was just nice! I like the "feel good" it gave me!

Jocelyn Hudson and Ryan have good chemistry together. They are great together. I really didn't care for Kelly's acting, she has a flat affect, she wasn't into her part.

Here's the thing.. I liked Jess and Ted and I love the actors that portrayed them. But this story/script would have been of more use to me if I set it on fire to light kindling in my fireplace. Real talk. I should have known when I paused it an hour in and got distracted by TikTok and YouTube for an entire hour before I remembered I was watching this. True story. I know Hallmark's formula is to wait until the last moment and 99% of the time I'm totally on board with that. But this was unacceptable. I didn't watch a romance. I watched a friendship, a sham of something that was supposed to resemble a relationship, then a 10 second flash forward clip of what we should have been watching for at least the last 30 minutes of runtime, if not the last hour of runtime. This movie is an absolute joke. And I love for their to be some actual conflict in Hallmark movies but this movie overplayed its hand. Fire whoever wrote it. Ugh. I should've hard passed on this one. Regrets.

My husband and I watch nearly every Hallmark movie and some are definitely better than others. We thought this one was refreshing mainly due to the acting of Jocelyn Hudon. She played her part very well and it was nice to see a relatively new face. We hope she becomes one of the regulars.