Romance at the Vineyard

The usual term for define this genre of film is, in my case, the polite nice.

But this film is just bizarre to creepy. And it continues , scene by scene , to become worse.

The problem is not the accent of grandparents, the absence of chemistry between main characters, the unrealism of situations and the Prince Charming reminding a goofy but the feeling about a scriptwriter random opening books about vineyard and putting , to be there, in its script.

The final is just awful and the cliches are used in absurd manner.

But the problem are the good premises, from location to the seeds of motivations for each character.

The story is set in Santa Barbara, California, but it was shot in Queensland, Australia. Because of that almost all the roles are played by Australian actors that few of us outside Australia have ever heard of. Just a point of interest, all are fine in the roles for this type of movie which follows the Hallmark formula very closely. Including the first kiss during the last minute of the movie.

The American actress is Susie Abromeit as Allee. Her parents are deceased, we never learn why, and she and her younger brother stay with their grandparents. Who, incidentally, own a small but very high quality winery. Their award-winner is their Pinot Noir. Allee feels she will take over some day but she has a big issue looming. The current vintage of Pinot is over-oaked and it is the wine they were going to use for a nationwide distribution deal.

Meanwhile, Australian actor Tim Ross as Ethan Blake works for a company that takes over small wineries. In fact they own all the other wineries in that region and Ethan is given the assignment to travel to this one and make a deal.

There really isn't much novel about this story and the attempt at depicting authentic winery operations fails badly. It comes across as a low-budget movie just for light entertainment. And it accomplishes that, just light entertainment for those of us looking for a clean 90-minute movie.

Its rating seems a bit high, probably because so many Australian voters gave it a "10". I'd say more like 4 or 5 is appropriate.

My wife and I watched it at home, streaming on Prime.

There is less than zero chemestry between the two leads, and one begins to wonder whether the actors even like each other or are just tolerating one another for a paycheck.

Allee tells Greg/Ethan that she and her brother, Nick, came to live at the vineyard with their Grandparents when she was eight years old and her brother was five. Why, then, is there such a huge gap in age differences between the female lead and her brother? The female appears to be roughly 40 (and, indeed, the actress was 39 or 40 at the time the movie was filmed) and the brother appears about 22, with that actor having been probably 27 at the time of filming. Nick might have been better cast as Allee's son . . . From all appearances, it would have been easier to believe.

As mentioned in other reviews, the Grandparents appear to have come from "the old country", but can't quite figure out what to do with their accents. While never sounding Italian (as the names Gianna and Franco would suggest), they do occasionally sound Greek, Swedish and even Dutch.

Lastly, the villan in this pic is the female CEO for Wine, Inc. (no kidding) and seems to have come directly from Disney Central Casting. She's clearly studied Cruella de Vil for tips on how to play this part and it'd be laughable if it weren't quite so pathetic.

Having been filmed on location in Australia, there are several gorgeous scenes of the countryside. Unfortunately, that's not enough to save this movie and make it watchable. Hard pass on this one.