Le jardin des coups de foudre

As with many in this genre, we meet our protagonists early and then chart their individual and, hopefully, cooperative courses. It is always fun to find the crossroads. This one meets the criteria happily.

This is the typical "made for TV" Hallmark romantic movie that is watchable, but kind of cheesey in the sense that scenes & situations seem unlikely & unbelievable.

Part of that is bcuz, while there is not a lot of time to build up & carry out a storyline, this movie seemed 2 speed up the scenarios, to the point of being highly unlikely that it would happen so fast & so easy...hence, unbelieveable.

This is NOT the case for all their movies, sum are very good, but this one just seemed rushed & didn't make the viewer feel like this was just likely to happen...it felt like "just a movie".

The ending was especially "uncoordinated" in that the developer guy was talking to the urban gardener lady in the afternoon (mid afternoonish), then takes her to his office tower (still afternoon lighting in the lobby).

But when they get 2 the outside rooftop, it is night (dark) out (see buildings & sky in the background), then within a minute or 2, the buildings & especially the sky makes it look just it's just after dusk (or before sunrise).

I get it, "it's JUST a movie", but still the drastic lighting changes & mixed up order of the natural / sky lighting was REALLY noticeable & kind of ruined the scene imho.

Hallmark churn out these films at such a pace that perhaps it's only natural that the quality is variable.

When a very good one like this comes along though it's a joy.

There's a strong story being told here, the leads have good chemistry - those things alone separate the good from the great where these films are concerned.

Yes, you have to very much suspend your disbelief, but on the whole this was a very good Hallmark film.

It took me a couple of minutes to get into it, but the story and the two main characters grew on me steadily. The script feels natural and all the actors reflect that same naturalness.

Loved this one! I really loved how the 2 main characters took it slow getting to know each other and on a deep level. Will definitely be watching this one again! A great beginning to the spring season!

fredmaier-32548: if you had watched more than 5 minutes, you would've seen that there indeed were more than flowers in the community garden. It was one of the storylines with Ms. Hewitt and Mr. Boyle, where they fought over her tomatoes and his peppers.