Associée avec mon ex

Home improvement shows are really fun to watch so a Hallmark romance set in a situation like that ought to be good to watch. The leads are generally likeable Danica isn't too perky so that's good. Andrew Walker is her architect love interest. They have enough chemistry. Wish they would have shown more home improvement and less romance.

Hannah (Danica McKellar) is a the star of a home make over TV show. She is assigned to conduct a make over for a historic building in her small New England hometown. She has to work with an architect Jeff (Andrew Walker), who just happens to be an old flame from her high school days.

The script is rather boring and most of the supporting actors provide little to spice this movie up. While McKellar and Walker are two of my favorite HM leads their chemistry is not convincing, so their isn't any HM magic in this movie.

Will I watch it again??? Not likely.

Expectations were rather mixed for 'Love in Design'. Hallmark did do some well above average and more films in 2018, having literally just come fresh from watching one of the best from the year 'Pearl in Paradise'. Andrew Walker is always worth watching, even when the film isn't good (and that has happened quite a number of times). The concept didn't really excite me though. Am also not the biggest of fans of Danica McKellar, who tends to be typecast and plays most of her roles pretty similarly.

'Love in Design' didn't work for me. It is not unwatchable and has its good things, have almost always seen one or two redeeming merits in the Hallmark films that miss big time. It is also not particularly good and fails quite badly in a number of crucial areas, well strictly speaking the areas that matter the most. Is it one of the worst 2018 Hallmark films? Probably not, there were definitely worse. In my mind, 'Love in Design', while not one of the worst of the batch, is one of the duller ones.

Am going to begin with the good things. Walker is an amiable and subtly charismatic leading man. Also thought that the production values were attractive, it's not lavish but it didn't look cheap or shoestring budget like.

The music is pleasant enough, nothing memorable but it didn't feel at odds or melodramatic.

However, quite a lot doesn't work. McKellar is very bland and shows a rather limited range of expressions, literally the most believable expressions come from the eyebrows and even they are mainly one emotion. The two have no chemistry together and seem incredibly distant, they wouldn't even be believable as friends. For a story so heavy on the personal drama, the relationship felt very undercooked and the drama was thin and what there is lifeless. Didn't care for their cliched and really difficult to endear to, due to the overwritten negative personality traits (especially with McKellar's) and the characters have very little to them.

Supporting cast are undistinguished at best. The script has nothing to it, did not sound like everyday conversation, is too talky and is very forced and over heated towards the end. The story doesn't engage at all and drags badly most of the time, too much of the drama going nowhere. What there is is very predictable, with there only being one surprise in the whole film and it still managed to not be that big. For a setting as promising as this, nothing really is done with it. We even don't get to see much of a final result. The ending is not as too neat as most Hallmark films, but this reviewer did lose interest quite some time before the end to really care about the outcome and part of me thought it contrived (like the whole conflict itself) and anti-climactic.

Overall, very lacklustre. 4/10.

As usual Danica McKellar was exceptional, and she worked well with the always superb Andrew W. Walker.

Be the way, if you haven't seen Andrew in "Dashing Though The Snow" it's great, one of my favorites.

Be sure to watch Danica in "Campfie Kiss" she gets to show off her math geekiness, it's great.

The supporting cast was splendid, especially Alvina August as best friend/coworker, and Jan Skene and Eric Pollins as Hannah's parents.. Paul Essiembre was a hoot with directions like "Be bold, but not too bold." Is that the kind of advice you want from the head of the network. It was like and inside joke with people on set.

The plot was not real original, designer is redoing a house, her ex is involved, they bicker, they reconnect, and all is right in design world. This is what we love about HM movies, they are predictable. If wanted orginal we would all be watching Hamlet and Taming of the Shrew. Oh, wait, even Shakespeare wasn't original.

"Many academics, most notably author Christopher Booker, believe that there are only seven basic plot structures in all of storytelling - frameworks that are recycled again and again in fiction but populated by different settings, characters, and conflicts." thank you Google.

So we love our HM movies, just some more than others.

My Advice: watch this movie, it is entertaining and fun.

Two old flames collide in a home improvement style Hallmark film that is boosted by two very likeable leads in Andrew Walker and the ever lovely Danica McKellar.

Yes, it's very predictable, and it drags a bit in places, but I cannot fault a film that thoroughly entertained me for the 86 mins run time too highly, because I thought it was warm, funny and heartfelt.