Le bonheur d'être aimé

I saw first films of series with interest, being grateful for the sweet air of nostalgia, for the fair simplicity, crafted story and acting.

But for Love s Unednding Legacy I was just tired. Maybe, because the thoughts were about first actors , maybe because the story is too predictable and the events are too ...pedagogic. Something seems missing and the message becomes, little by little, boring. But, sure, precise target, noble effort and a story far to be more than version of soap opera .

Maybe, a sort of ingenuity is necessary to love this new parts . Or be familiar with series books .

So, the air of Little house in the Prairie, for me, is lost in this case.

What could have been a good TV movie was weakened by an overdone and unsuitable musical score. I found this was an annoyance during the first half of the movie. Performances overall were not that bad but the this mood music (that didn't seem to suit a western film) played over the actors as they spoke in many scenes and this became a real distraction.

In one scene, which takes place in the church, a pastor is asking a congregation to volunteer to take care of homeless children lined up across the platform behind him. All the dialog in this scene is underscored by this deep emotional mood music which is unnecessary and distracting.

There were so many technical things wrong with this film that made it cringe worthy half the time, but I guess the real question is not so much is it a great film, but what do you want to get out of it?

Love's Unending Legacy is a clean movie with great values and is good for the entire family. There's nothing violent in the movie, no offensive language, there's only kindness and love trying to conquer all. Making it a great film for the entire family.

With that said, there are some serious things that downgraded the quality of the film. Every time they add to the "Love comes softly" movie series, each movie seems to get a little worse in quality. The biggest downfall to the film was the music score. The music overpowered the actors talking and never seemed to stop. Why on earth did there need to be music all the time? In every serious scene the music overpowered the scene making it feel corny. If the music would have been toned down it would have helped greatly.

The past 4 films of the franchise have been following a strong storyline that builds off of its self. But this movie veers a little off course. The story in this film leaves a lot of plot holes as it seems to erase lots people that existed in the previous movies. It would have been easy to explain what happened with a line or two, but instead they went in the direction of "those people do not exist". It's disappointing that they changed actresses for Marty, on top of that there were things that were hinted, but not explained with Clark and Marty leaving plot holes. And to make it even worse they didn't use the original house from the first film for Clark and Marty's ranch.

Further more the love story in the film was random, predictable and put on the back burner. In the second film there was a slow build between Willie and Missy creating this beautiful love story. But in this film there's barely any screen time with Missy and Zach, they felt more like friends than anything else.

This is the fifth film in the Love Comes Softly series based on the books by Janette Oke centered around a pioneering family. In this entry Missy LaHaye has been left widowed when her sheriff husband Willie is killed breaking up a bar fight. After two years of toughing it out on her own she brings her son Mattie back home to her home town where she becomes the local teacher and has a small house of her own. Almost immediately she takes in a 14 year old orphan girl named Belinda, from the widows and orphans organization, who was sent with her brother from New York. Unfortunately, her brother goes to a neighboring farm where they are working him hard and not feeding him properly.

It was wonderful to see Erin Cottrell back as Mattie and Dale Midkiff as her father Clark Davis. There was also the introduction of the town sheriff Zach Taylor played by Victor Browne. I was disappointed to see another actress play Marty, I miss Katherine Heigl. Also...what happened to adopted son Jeff LaHaye???? He is not even mentioned in this film.

Overall it was a great story and I think fans of the series will love it.

These two are perfect for each other and I love Belinda's story.

Once again the movie diverges from the book. Still a great story.