The Cabin

It is a very cliché. It is not very cinematographic. All the plot lines are obvious. Jokes too. And why people hate Huggies? Never tried this exact dish. But I have hearts and liver and other guts quite often as a meal. And yet it seems in every travel show or movie about Scottland there is a joke "how disgusting are Huggies".... So the movie is full of cliché, romantic one too. But the movie is not awful, it us even enjoyable to some extent. Give it a try, just don't expect anything huge.

Hallmark movies can range in quality - from surprisingly good and well done to very bad. This one is very bad.

The romantic couple have no chemistry and their dialogue is unpleasant and childishly competitive, to the point that it is not fun to watch. Also, the female actress is almost 60 in real life, making the entire romance a little forced and a little creepy.

The couple and their children all behave unrealistically. Of course, the couple walks out on each other repeatedly, only to change their minds - but these scenes are poorly conceived, badly written and unconvincing. And children keep saying how they really want to be in the sports competition, despite the fact that they have hardly practiced and are terrible at almost all of the events.

The sports competition scene at the end of the film is terrible. There are two teams each consisting of two families (a low budget, even for a Hallmark movie) -but the entire competition comes down to one father versus the other team's father - because no one else on either team does anything that affects the outcome of any competition. A crowd of spectators watch as children throw a hammer 14 feet. Really, 14 feet. They announce that. Why would spectators make this competition their destination for a day? And, why are we watching this stink bomb?

I have watched over a hundred Hallmark films - and with that as context, I am telling you that The Cabin is one of the worst two or three Hallmark films I have ever seen.

The Cabin is a pleasant, cheerful movie about two families with the same last name ..both of whom have registered for a Scottish vacation built around some competitive sports events . The families are both composed of a single parent, a teenage daughter and pre-teen son. Upon arrival at the Scottish vacation camp, there is a mix-up of names, and both families are 'forced' to share small cabin,.. To this faithful Hallmark viewer, any interest that this contrived arrangement can muster has now been exhausted. The children are beyond cliches. And the parents, a scruffy, unshaven Steven Brand and a desperately youthful Lea Thompson, are without any chemistry or basis for what becomes a relationship. it was difficult to understand some Steven Brand's dialogue, as his Scottish accent was often too heavy to decipher..Lea Thompson is so mis-cast in this role, it boggles the mind to understand what the film's producers were striving for. She is close to 60 years old, and while one does not want to appear politically incorrect..this is way too mature an age to depict her as a young divorcee of young children, and one who is attractive to the male lead. There is far too much hair flouncing, twinkling smiles, flirtatious glances to make her believable. She is not an ingenue. The plot is contrived, predictable, almost unworthy of a Hallmark movie. There is absolutely no chemistry between the leading characters to account for their attraction and romance. This is a formulaic, predictable film, with very little plot, almost no chemistry between the leading actors, and felt like a sad expenditure of time and money on the part of Hallmark producers.

I cannot understand why this dreadful TV Movie set deliberately in Scotland to showcase everything about Scotland was filmed in Ireland with mostly Irish actors with horrendous accents instead of Scottish actors and locale. In 2011 it makes absolutely no sense other than perhaps a very bad financial decision. The well-worn, contrived storyline of two families' reservations being mixed up forcing them all to share a ridiculously small cabin in spite of getting off on the wrong foot, the lack of believable chemistry between the obnoxious father and the unsympathetic mother who fall for each other within a few days of meeting, the poor script and unrealistic depiction of a Highland Gathering of the Clans and Highland Games leaves the audience questioning why it was even attempted. The reason I have given it one star is because the families' acting is actually good in spite of what they have to work with and it has its moments but mostly because, being Scottish, I liked the fact that both families enjoyed sampling "haggis" before finding out the ingredients.

I an struggling to understand what's going on here. It seem implausible. Anyhow - not a good watch!

A note to other reviewers regarding Lea Thompson's age: This movie came out in 2011. Ms. Thompson was born in 1961. That's 50 - not almost 60. When I was 59, I had teenagers. To say she's too old to have younger children - not true. A lot of people have kids when they are older. My son and dsughter-in- law had their first child at 34 and 37. I was 30 and 32 when I had my children. My sister- in-law and brother were 33 and 43, respectively.