With Love, Your Sweetly Salted

Unlike some viewers who expect this type of movie to be Oscar winning movies for acting, sets etc, I do not. I come here to be entertained for 90 minutes and I certainly was this time round and very often am with Reel movies. I feel they tend to be more 'natural' than some of the Hallmark movies are.

I want to give Reel a huge thank you and congratulations for realizing that not all viewers are sitting 6 inches away from the screen and /or have 20-20 vision and when they have to use a popup screen to tell us what the texts are saying they used (at least in this movie) a font size and colour that was clear enough to see so we knew where the story was going. Awesome and keep up the good work. Thank you.

Another really low budget Reel One Entertainment TV movie. Movie is technically almost without any glaring issue except one - it's was probably shot in Kelowna, Canada pretending to be Chicago which is not an issue this time as there are barely any scenes shot outside. The real issue like in so many new ROE TV movies is the overusage of stock footage, this time abovementioned Chicago, they even showed two different stock videos in the row several times. It's tied for the worst one with "The Love Issue". The music score is great as they used Latino tracks mixed with signature ROE tracks from several years ago which are vastly superior to the new one. Few scenes suffer from a bit of loud background music, but only in the first 30 min.

The cast is mostly fine. The only minor issue for me is that Jonathan Wilde (Luis) is borderline passable as William Martinez (Seb) brother.

Synopsis posted here is copy/pasted from ROE site like so many times is wrong. Alison works for "Chicago Today" newspaper, and yes, she trashed new Puerto Rican restauraunt where Seb is a chef, and his brother manager because of the poor tasted jibarito. Her online review went viral but in the negative way. For some strange reason, her editor suggested that she should cool down / leave for a while to see if readers want her back. It makes no sense. If newspaper worked like that they would be quickly out of staff. She should write about something else in cooldown period. Alison was sorry about negative reactions so she decided to go undercover at Seb's restaurant as a sous-chef. When she came to Seb's restaurant to apply for job, she weared high heels (what?!). Even Seb noticed her highly polished nails so she can't be sous-chef.

Basically after a bit of ridiculous Act I and the beginning of Act II, the movie is much better. I mostly liked relatively realistic relations between cast, especially between Alison and two other cooks at Seb's kitchen. Also scenes with Bob at "Chicago Today" office are pretty good and nice touch. Kudos to writer and director for these scenes.

If only the first ~15 min were written like the rest of the movie, and without the usage of excessive stock footage, I would rate is easily as above average (7*).

And obligatory don't watch trailer as it's the ROE one and for some unknown reason(s) it shows whole movie compressed.

My wife and I enjoyed this Hallmark-like movie because the setting is Chicago, a city we love to visit, and much of the time is spent in various kitchens in food prep, something we both enjoy. However it was filmed in Canada with many beautiful location "establishing" shots of Chicago, many of them nighttime.

But I have a big complaint, the actress who plays the lead role as the Chicago food critic. She is Lanie McAuley as Alison. She has a very nice voice but most times delivers her lines with a lot of "vocal fry", or what I often refer to as "putting gravel into her voice." It quickly becomes very annoying and takes away from appreciating her character.

That aside, it is a nice story and a pleasant set of characters. Alison writes a food critic column as 'Sweetly Salted' and does not reveal her identity. When a publishing house in New York gets wind of her real identity they ask her to write a book, so she goes undercover as a sous chef for the restaurant she gave a bad review to.

Everything plays out just like most Hallmark movies, and there is a kiss about one minute before it ends. Easy entertainment after weekly steak and wine night, with chocolate cake of course for dessert.

What a completely ridiculous movie. The idea that some food critic can walk in off the street and land a job as a sous chef with no resume and no experience is laughable. There's a lot more to being a sous chef than being able to chop frigging vegetables. And what about her "experimental" dishes that she makes all the time? That tells me she knows her way around a kitchen and should already know how chopping works. Dumb, dumb, dumb storyline. Ever watched Hell's Kitchen? That shows the reality of what it's like to work in a kitchen. You don't just wander into a dinner service with no experience.

Lots of Chicago shots but obviously filmed in Canada. The lead character is so smug and full of herself, definitely not likeable. She is a food expert but can't slice a tomato. And she somehow knows the secret to the mom's special recipe? Ugh.

The most annoying thing was the use of that same stupid song that has been in countless Hallmark movies. I hear the opening notes of that and want to jam an ice pick through my ear.

I like it against holes, unrealism, few crazy details and good spoon of cliches.

I like it for Bob , the obituaries writer and his shy efforts to seduce Alison .

I like it for food and culinary suggestions.

For eulogy of friendship and for discover of jibarito ( as Romanoion, not easy to be familiar with puero rico food ), for banknote and for the boss of publishing house and her game with tinny toy animals.

But , out of details, that, others, the film seems unsalted and not exactly sweet. The worst part- the first appearence of Alison at restaurant and the huge unrealism of acceptance of her as sous-chef by Sebastian.

But, sure, romance .

So, in this case, exactly the details matter.

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