Married by Mistake

Chloe Bennet, who was my favorite in the TV series, 'Marvel's Agents of S. H. I. E. L. D.', a role she got when she was only 20, here plays Riley Smith. In a silly sequence of events she and a guy, after a night of drinking, get married, surely by mistake, in Las Vegas. Instead of quickly calling it off he realizes she can help his family business, a chain of retail stores. So they go home together in Tennessee.

As it turns out Riley had met her new husband's brother and there were 'sparks' and when they are all together they had to work out relationship details.

However, in spite of great resistance by the dad, who was changed with running the company, the two brothers and Riley were able to update the company and make changes to salvage the business.

The only remaining issue was to figure out how Riley and the two brothers could all end up with the right partners.

We watched it at home, streaming on Peacock, with my daughter visiting from Chicago. Not a great movie but entertaining, Chloe Bennet is really good in her role.

Why is everyone in this movie wearing clothes from 1985? It looks like they raided a Sears or Montgomery Ward from the 80s. We have the Miami Vice blazers, neon, paint splattered shirts, oversized belts, houndstooth jacket etc. At first I thought maybe the movie is actually older but it's from 2023. Once you get past trying to figure out why it's happening, it becomes fun to see what staple fashion from the 80's we forgot about pops up next! Aside from that, it's a cute and fun movie with really good actors. The hallmark/lifetime movies are enjoyable but they don't always have more than one or two good actors. This cast was pretty great. It has diversity as well. So grab your popcorn and revisit the 80s!

In Vegas, Riley Smith (Chloe Bennet) wakes up hung-over, naked, and sleeping next to her friend Nate Bynam (Blair Penner). They had gotten drunken married. Recent graduate Riley failed to get an expected job and Nate offers her a job at his family's company in Tennesse. He fails to tell her that it's a giant nation-wide franchise of stores. She also falls for her new brother-in-law Rhys Bynam (Anthony Konechny).

This got me at Chloe Bennet. Otherwise, I would have turned this off right away. I'm not expecting much from E! And that's what I get. The start is kind of interesting. Nate seems nice enough, but these two aren't generating much heat. Out of the blue, this inserts a hunky model type. There is a love triangle and then a quadrangle. The final configuration is never in doubt. It's the first act and it has already lost my rooting interest. This cannot introduce Rhys before it gets to Emily. The audience needs to know that Nate has a landing spot before we can root for his dumping. The romancing game is lost before it is fully begins.

There are other issues. The biggest one is Maria. When Riley finds mother and daughter sleeping in the store, there are ways to elevate the tension. The cops can be called or Riley can take them into her home. I prefer the second since it fits her character's motivation. Instead, the movie takes the least interesting and a rather illogical path. Why wouldn't Riley tell the security guard to keep the incident a secret? It all adds up to poor writing. This feels like a Hallmark reject and that's saying a lot.

This is a charming movie and for the genre not bad, not bad at all. I actually enjoyed this movie and I think it is a fun watch, but this is not anything fantastic and except for the decent original idea, much here is kinda cliche.

Acting is good, even great most of the time. This has a lot of charm, and except for a few cliches and some minor unbelievable events, most of the movie is a fun watch. Where this fail is with the script. There are simply too many plot holes and too many times you go "that would never happen" or "How can they forget everything? They'd been drugged?"

They could have easily made this into a much better movie with some minor changes to the script and exchange a few of the cliches to something fresher. If they had, this would have been a great romantic comedy. Sadly they didn't so this is only watchable. I give this a generous 7/10 for the genre, as a movie perhaps the score should be lower, but as said; I enjoyed this. You can do far worse.

The positive? This movie has a good looking cast. The negative? Every single thing else.

I really really hoped for the best (in spite of my instincts) but it was just so so bad. The storyline is insanely ridiculous and outrageous. There is nothing remotely believable in it other than student loans being expensive and some workers have it really hard. I don't know how they signed off on the plot because it's a really hard sell, well except for the eye candy I guess.

Bottomline: If you're looking for something to escape reality and just pass time then this movie will serve that but if you want a meaningful movie that'd stay with you then skip.