Notes from Dad

I saw this movie on Pixl with the title, "Playing Father". What a nice surprise to find an older (2012/13) Hallmark movie that is so much higher quality than most of the made-for-tv films on today. I really enjoyed the movie and the music and level of playing was excellent. If Eddie Cibrian was not actually playing the trumpet, he did an excellent job faking it - he was so good, I couldn't tell either way. I used to play trumpet so I was impressed with him and the actor playing TJ, the young trumpet player. The woman cast as his mother was perfect - she looked like she could actually be his mom. The story was not cliche at all - schools are losing their budgets for music programs, so that plot line was relevant. Nice movie - I would watch it again.

Why do I find this Hallmark Channel TV movie so good? In part because this story about a jazz trumpeter who starts teaching high school music hits a lot of my buttons. Mostly, I think, because the script by Wayne Lemon and direction by Eriq Lasalle starts with people doing things. They play the trumpet or get into fights or run away or simply look uncomfortable. This is a movie, after all, not a radio play and for it to be good, it needs to be visually interesting. Things have to move. Happily they do.

There are some problems with this movie, including the clichés it falls into. Eddie Cibrian is a jazz musician, so he wears a Miles Davis sort of beard, but he does look good in it; the school is threatened with being closed, and of course the band he starts is needed to help save it. However, this one is pretty much a model of how to take your standard Hallmark plot and do it very right.

Don't get me wrong I watch the silly Hallmark romance movies everyday. But I really miss the heartfelt quality movies they used to make. This could be one of the last one of those. Great cast, well acted, likeable characters and developed many of the characters. It's worth seeing for sure.

Many cliches can be the main accusation against film. The ude of them is the good point. Not the only If you do not ignore the jazz. In some measure, the nice surprise remains Eddie Cibrian. Maybe, because he proposes real good character in his realistic traits. Because IT is a fair story of adaptation. A honest one. And for that, beautiful.

In short,a diferent Hallmark. Sure the spices and the basic ingrediente are not diferent by the basic recipe, but are just seductive used. And few details, about sensibility past experiences new beginnings are just useful reflections of ordinaries situations defining many from us.