Paging Mr. Darcy

Mallory Jansen plays Professor Eloise Cavendish a Jane Austen expert who has been asked to give the key note speech at the annual JALA (Jane Austen League of America) Conference and Ball. She is hoping to impress Victoria Jennings who is on the hiring committee at Princeton for a professorship Eloise has applied for. Unfortunately, Eloise does not get off to the best start by offending Victoria's nephew...her very own Mr. Darcy...aka her guest of honor liaison. And she really puts her foot in it when she says she doesn't like all of the pomp and circumstance...she is not a romantic. Doesn't like balls and dress-up or being the center of attention, that is until she finds out that Victoria does. Then she teams up with Victoria's Nephew Sam Lee to win Victoria over. In the process these two become very close.

I love Jane Austen...with Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion being my favorites, but I confess to having been a little skeptical as to whether I would enjoy this Hallmark Austen-centric film...but I enjoyed it and am looking forward to the other two upcoming for 2024's Lovuary-February.

"I'm a scholar, not some Fitzwilliam Darcy fan girl."-Eloise

I rather enjoyed the chemistry between Mallory Jansen and Will Kemp...but don't get me wrong, Will Kemp makes this Hallmark romantic film and carries off a Darcy costume with panache! This is a recommendation to both Jane Austen fans and romantics alike.

I liked some things about this Hallmark romance. It was fairly original, at least by Hallmark standards. No girl returning to a small town. No reconnecting with an old boyfriend. No struggling business that needed saving. None of the tired Hallmark tropes. The movie simultaneously pays homage to the culture surrounding Jane Austen's books, while also poking a little lighthearted fun at it, which I enjoyed. I liked Will Kemp as Sam, our Mr. Darcy cosplayer. He was charming and engaging and did the often self-deprecating humor quite well.

That being said, I can't say I found our heroine Eloise that likeable. She was way too tightly wound, pretty rude and also rather scheming and mercenary when it came to vying for that coveted professorship at Princeton. To be fair, Mallory Jensen did a good job of portraying this character as written. And her unlikeable exterior personality was clearly supposed to be a front to hide her deep-seated, underlying insecurities. Somehow, though, those initial unlikeable qualities were way too exaggerated for me to really warm up to her later in the movie. Her sister Mia was even worse. She was over-the-top annoying, and Lillian Doucet-Roche just overacted her.

There were some good interactions between Sam and Eloise, but I wouldn't say the chemistry was sizzling. The two almost kisses were just awkward, not romantic. There was a little bit of good banter between the two of them, but not nearly enough. In short, the romance between the two of them wasn't as good as it could or should have been.

So, this Hallmark romance, which had a premise with so much promise, just ended up being okay, not outstanding. I mostly blame the screenwriters, who were most likely under the gun to produce yet another movie in the Hallmark assembly line and didn't have enough time to do it really well.

Eloise Cavendish (Mallory Jansen) is a Jane Austen expert and a really big fan. Only she's not a romantic and doesn't see Austen as a romance novelist. She is doing a speech at a Jane Austen conference in order to please organizer Dr. Victoria Jennings (Carolyn Scott) to get a Princeton professorship. Sam Lee (Will Kemp) is playing Mr. Darcy for the conference and is Victoria's nephew. Mia Cavendish (Lillian Doucet-Roche) is Eloise's heart-broken little sister.

At first, I thought they might use the plane passenger to form a love triangle. At last, a triangle is too complicated as a shape for Hallmark. I do like the chemistry and the characters. It's not high drama and Mia is not changing that in the slightest. It's low intensity sweetness. It's perfectly fine for Hallmark.

This movie is borderline for me. I think that is mostly because of Will Kemp and Mallory Jansen. They had decent chemistry and watching them together was about the only good thing in the movie. Lillian Doucet-Roche was only irritating as Mia.

The movie is filled with cliches like all the women going gaga at Sam. But also many of the usual formula tropes. Seriously? Eloise could suddenly cook just so the writer could put her and Sam together. Another common trope is one of the leads helping the other overcome her neurosis.

Acting was mixed with some of the supporting cast being questionable. There was some decent dialogue.

Call me a grump on this review. If you look at most of my reviews, I'm very generous in my ratings. For many 5.5-star rated movies of this type, I have given 8 or 9 stars. I love Will Kemp, but this movie didn't do him justice. At the movie's beginning, the characters talk about learning ballroom dancing. I expected that the talented Mr. Kemp would show off his dancing skills. Not so! A few little hops and turns were the only dancing that occurred. The sister of Eloise Cavendish was highly annoying, over-the-top, selfish, and immature. As for romance, I just wasn't feeling it. The movie ended so abruptly that I thought a commercial was coming up, and there would be more to the story. Truthfully, I wanted to love this movie, but I wouldn't watch it again. Just a note: Benjamin Ayers was also in the movie but appeared on a golf cart for five seconds and drove away.