Betty's Bad Luck in Love

This was a cute romantic comedy mainly because of the two romantic leads and their great chemistry. Both Laci J Mailey and Marco Grazzini are young and attractive and even though the script wasn't perfect they made it work and I enjoyed seeing these two together.

The story starts when Betty is in high school. Spurred by her friend Mya she gets up the courage to talk to her crush...only to have a curse put on her by another girl who liked him...fastforward to today when Betty actually crunches statistics for a living doing risk management. Every time she has gotten close to a boyfriend something has happened to him or she has called it off before it can. She has a new neighbor move in, a high risk taking traveling photographer...who doesn't seem daunted by what could happen to him. He even plays rugby!

I loved the banter between our two leads and I have to say that the character of Alex was almost too perfect and I loved his apartment's aesthetic! I think most guys would have run from Betty, good thing she is beautiful.

This is a bit of an unusual premise with the curse and all. Some of the adventures are a little quirky too. But what strikes me most is how uncomfortable everything is around Betty. As is often the case, our heroine is just that in her job. Extremely competent at least. But even in that I was holding my breath through much of the movie. By the time I let it out, I should have still been wary. And Betty is so neurotic that it makes me cringe. I just don't see how someone like her who jumps at absolutely everything can hold down a job much less be great at it.

Laci J Mailey and Marco Grazzini were OK together but the story just didn't sell how they reached the point of being in love. The acting was OK and the dialogue was OK, maybe better if you like quirkiness.

There was a nice role reversal in the awkward date scene.

I really appreciate how Hallmark tries to come up with new and different variations of their successful romance formula. But this story (about a bad luck childhood curse) was just annoying. It reminded me of "Just My Luck" with Lindsay Lohan, and that's not a good thing.

Laci J Mailey (from "Chesapeake Shores") and Marco Grazzini (from "Virgin River") are good looking and engaging leads. Grazzini had the easy aasignment of being smooth and charming and then understandably befuddled by Mailey's character. But Mailey was given the thankless task of being completely neurotic and unhinged throughout much of the movie "... because all the men in her life will have horrible things happen to them if they get too close."

I just didn't like the premise. I kept hoping she'd realize the curse was nonsense. But, instead, poor Mailey is constantly forced to act like her character is having a series of panic attacks (in an elevator, at a rugby match, on a camping trip, at a fire, etc.). And they're played for laughs that weren't funny.

I also wasn't amused by the MANY scenes involving Felix, the well meaning but socially inept and frankly intrusive office nerd. Fortunately, Mailey's character wasn't unkind, but the moviemakers clearly intended viewers to see him as an object of derision.

I was also appalled at the multiple loud talking scenes during yoga classes. It was extremely disrespectful behavior that did not reflect well on the characters.

Perhaps the biggest problem with this "love story" is the lack of focus on the love story itself. The lovers were kept apart from each other throughout because of Betty's fear that harm would come to Alex if they were together. Instead of watching these two spend time together and fall in love, we are constantly bombarded with Betty saying she can't be with him.

Ugh. I'd like to see the two leads in a different and better movie.

The story starts 20 years earlier than present time, when Betty and her friend are teenagers at school. They are sitting at a table outside when the boy Betty has a crush on comes by. A jealous girl comes by and puts a "hex" on Betty, forever she will have bad luck with all her boyfriends.

Twenty years later in New York City (actually shot in British Columbia) Laci J Mailey is Betty. She lives in 4B. She is thriving as a risk assessment professional but has a long string of failed relationships. She really believes in the hex put on her all those years ago.

So most of the story here is Betty battling the hex but in essence she is allowing herself to be doomed by her belief in it. It comes to a head when she meets the ideal guy, a news photographer, Marco Grazzini as Alex, who moves in above her in 5B. As they get closer Betty finds ways to sabotage the relationship. Until a revelation when she and her best friend look up the girl who put the hex on her.

My wife and I shared the same take, this is NOT one of the better Hallmark movies. It comes across as a low budget movie which is a bit overly silly in some places and the script is marginal at best. But it also isn't any worse than a typical rom-com TV show, just a bit longer.

At home, on DVD from our public library.

"Betty's Bad Luck in Love" (2024) Hallmark

I had not seen Laci J Mailey in a movie before this one, I'd only seen her in "Chesapeake Shores." I'm a fan of hers from that, and I really liked her here too. I had seen Marco Grazzini in "Right in Front of Me," where he costarred with Janel Parrish. I really liked that movie, and he didn't disappoint in this film either.

I read other reviews where people psychoanalyzed Mailey's character and tried to compare a Hallmark fantasy romance with real life. I don't do that. I tend to watch movies, especially romance movies, for entertainment. I found "Betty's..." to be a lot of fun. The curse thing just added to the fun. Whoever thought of that and wrote it into the script came up with a new twist for a Hallmark story. There were a lot of fun and admittedly goofy--but entertaining--scenes in this movie.

I'm not going to spoil the story, so I'll just say that if you are looking for a fun romance that will take your mind off real life--if you let it--here is another one from Hallmark that should do the trick.