Romance with a Twist

The story is a little rough at times. Rough outline, it sounds like another one of those where the leads get thrown together to do a project, and more specifically to do a performance. You could call this a dance performance in the air. But it starts out rough. Olivier Renaud does everything he can to make his character, Bennet, a spoiled, arrogant former Olympian with no tact whatsoever. What I found more disturbing was how much real hurt was inflicted on Luna. But she's no snowflake. She stood up to it and gave some back.

There are some ups and downs for just about all the major characters. Some of the actors handled that better than others, with Jocelyn Hudon being one of the better. Through all their practices and rehearsals, it didn't seem like this could become anything worth watching. But if you don't watch anything else in this movie, you have to watch their performance. I have no idea how much either of the stars did on the silks. Probably not a lot except the still shots, but the performance was beautiful. The stunt doubles should get first page credit in this movie. (Michel Bray, Emma Carrothers and Edio Silvio).

The ending was sweet too.

No chemistry and boring boring boring.like watching lumps of clay. The arial stuff was lame and brought nothing to the show. There was about 30 seconds of dancing, and it was like watching somebody warm up in a ballet studio. It brought nothing to the show. All around garbage really. The actors had no chemistry together at all. Nothing made you care about these characters or their story. Very pedestrian. I would not recommend wasting your time watching this movie. If you happen to be laid up with a broken leg and there's nothing else to do feel free to waste two hours of your life otherwise I just finding anything else to watch. When I read some of those great reviews, I feel like Hallmark must pay them to write such stuff because it's so not reflective of what was in the show.

Jocelyn Hudon is gorgeous. There, got that out of the way. Truth be told, her presence in this film that is basically about dancing is the only reason I watched it. And I'm actually glad that I did, because Hudon, as Luna, lights up the screen whenever she is on it.

Non-spoiler alert - the plot is Hallmark standard: two people who don't meet and start off by butting heads as they come together to achieve something - in this case it's an artistic dance routine at an arts festival - and end up falling in love with each other. Familiar trope, new setting.

Hudon and Oliver Renaud as Bennett have pretty good chemistry, once the initial scripted standoffishness is a thing of the past.

Jocelyn Hudon is a very beguiling, bright and beautiful actress who shines as Luna, a former dancer trying to replace an aerial gymnast who dropped out of The Small Town Festival just 6 weeks away. The role of a former dancer wasn't a stretch for her given that she actually trained and performed at the National Ballet School of Canada starting when she was eleven.

Luna is paired with Bennett, an Olympic gymnast and professional aerialist who has been performing around the world with Cirque du Reve (a fictional Cirque du Soleil). Bennett is played by Oliver Renaud who actually did perform with the real Cirque du Soleil. He's lost his partner and the script would have us believe that a former dancer, who's spent the last few years working in her family's construction business, could learn to be a world class aerial gymnast in just 6 weeks. Maybe. The real Cirque du Soleil has an intensive training program that lasts at least 3-4 months.

As is often the case with these kinds of movies, the Big Festival is presented as having some sort of monumental significance when, in fact, it's just a small town festival. When it finally happened, it didn't look like more than a few dozen people showed up to watch. But Luna and Bennett's festival performance was actually pretty good.

Along the way, a small town reporter for a small town paper (Hazleton Weekly) inexplicably turns a puff piece about the up coming local festival into a bitter critique based on a preview she should never have seen. That would never happen and it bothered me. It was the kind of unrealistic plot development just added to create conflict and tension.

I had to look up the actress who played Luna's mom (Tonya Clarke) because she seemed too young and pretty to be Luna's mom. But she's 52 and has some nice scenes being very supportive of her daughter's dreams. I liked her even though I was a bit confused by the family's construction business. It seemed to consist of no one other than Luna, her brother and her mother and father. They're very excited and very busy about getting the contract for the festival but I never saw anything that they did in connection with that contract. And what would the festival need constructed? The Big Performance took place inside an existing theater.

This movie had one of my least favorite Hallmark tropes (the interrupted kiss) but Luna and Bennett's actual first kiss was pretty memorable.

Overall, the movie was just OK. I would probably rate this a 5 or 6 in most cases but I bumped it to 7 stars because I like Jocelyn Hudon.

This was a very well done movie and I am glad I watched it. The leading actors were solid in their performances. This was for me, somewhat of a departure from the usual Hallmark movies in that it was breaking new ground as two wounded souls worked together through turmoil and turbulence to prepare and then put on a performance. Being a team of just two pushed boundaries for both of them. It was interesting to watch the struggle each had. The support cast was strong but I think they could have been better introduced and strengthened. As an example, it took me more than a few minutes to figure out who was who, especially the individuals surrounding the lead female actor. There could have been more visible warmth between them not just words.