Le parfum du grand amour

It's Set in Bruges, the shooting locations are very apt and lovely. This slow yet well-directed romance is suitable to be played in the background while you work on something. You hardly come across Hallmark movies where actors have accents and hence its refreshing to see some of the supporting casts carry speak in accents.

Violet Chappel (Shantel VanSanten) arrives to take over her late father's European perfume company in Belgium. Their most successful formula has gone missing and pages of her father's notebook are ripped out. With the important Valentine's Day deadline approaching, she is desperate and has to hire a new nose. She bumps into botanist Dec Granger (Victor Webster) who seems to have a special nose but unwilling to work for a perfume company. There is also the rival copycat perfumer Olivia Caine (Bobbie Phillips).

VanSanten is certainly gorgeous. She does her bumbling best to be adorable. Victor Webster is being a brooding cad. The pairing is pretty good for a Hallmark romance. The European location is a good change from the usual Canada. It's a pretty simple story as always. It doesn't really matter as long as the couple is appealing and does good work. This is fine.

The movie is slow, the scenery is gorgeous, but can Hallmark please stop casting Brittany Bristow in roles with accents. Her accents are cringeworthy

This movie could have been so much better than it was. Yes, the two leads are gorgeous, and so is the scenery. However, nothing really happens in the movie except the heroine is trying to save her father's perfume company--but there is NO suspense or intrigue in how she saves it. Pacing is leaden and plodding. She is so rude and overbearing to the male lead when she first meets him, tells him his job (designing gardens at a botanical museum) is a "waste of his talents." I can't imagine how a woman would attract a man after she insulted a job that he went to college to get. The leads have no chemistry.

If you compare this movie to Lacey Chambert's "Love, Romance, and Chocolate," this is a big miss. Disappointing because I usually love Hallmark movies that are set overseas in "exotic" locations.

p.s. Why cant Hallmark find people who can act. If you watch old black and white movies from the 40's, everyone in the movie from the maids to the cooks to the secretaries can act better than most of the LEADS in a hallmark movie. It's crazy. Maybe it was the studio system back then, where they helped train people under contract in their craft. Maybe Hallmark should have acting classes for the "actors."

I'm very happy to have seen this movie, Hallmark was getting stuck with their all time actors and locations and it was a nice change to see it was shot in Belgium, actors were very natural and had chemistry, the script wasn't rushed and I hope they will make more like this one.