100% Compatibles

My wife and I enjoy Hallmark movies for light entertainment, because they are made for TV they each are about 82 or 83 minutes long and feature attractive actors in feel-good stories.

Here old friends went their separate ways 12 years earlier. He to pursue his singing and songwriting career, she to form a matchmaking business that has a 100% success rate. She has some sort of unexplained mystical way of telling when two people are perfect for each other.

After 12 years he returns and looks her up because she was the only one he ever loved but has a hard time telling her that, afraid to ruin the friendship.

Everyone! It's a Hallmark movie, we all know how it will turn out, the fun is seeing how it gets there.

On DVD from our public library.

Brooklyn Moore (Jessica Lowndes) has always had the knack of making the perfect match. Devin Knight (Wes Brown) is her awkward school friend. It's twelves years later. She has a matchmaking business called "Over the Moon in Love" in San Francisco, but she has never made a match for herself. Devin re-enters her life after losing touch. Stephanie Carlton holds the potential for a big magazine cover but she wants to get set up by Brooklyn. She's taken with Devin and demands to be set up with him.

Oh hey! Jessica Lowndes actually wrote this herself. I won't be too mean. This is fine. Hallmark does not set a high bar. It doesn't inspire me to follow her writing career. She does need to learn to write a meet-cute for her rom-com leads. They could meet in high school with his dental headgear getting caught in her hair. He just needs to be a big nerd whom she never sees coming. Maybe he gets picked on and she comes to his rescue. I do like the Cyrano de Bergerac aspect but the final pairing is never in doubt. Non of this is in doubt. It's a very safe Hallmark flick.

Hallmark is known for pleasant characters, fairly uncomplicated story lines, and happy endings. This movie did meet all those criteria. But something essential was missing..The story line is so simplistic, it is almost characteristic of a high school amateur production. There is no mystery, no real chemistry between the leading characters, and one wonders how this script got chosen for production. Jessica Lowndes wrote it?? Well, credit where it's due..It is a script. But it contains such one-dimensional characters, such a simple and unsophisticated story line, it is almost a parody of a Hallmark movie. Wes Brown is a mature, talented actor with an impressive repertoire of films to his credit. This movie almost embarrasses him with the script and emotions he is asked to convey..Jessica Lowndes is attractive but has a fairly limited range of emotions. The story she wrote is so predictable, one wonders how it got selected for filming. Credit should be given to the secondary characters. The heroine's mother and father are portrayed with serious demeanors, and some appropriate lines. The woman who is the perceived rival in the story, Miranda Frigon, is such an under-used actress..with so much emotional range, it seems long overdue that she is not given a leading role She appears in many Hallmark movies and, almost always, in the role of an unlikable character, a rival, an agitator. Why not give her a chance to be the heroine? Let her find love, be pursued by a leading man, win the hero?? In this film, some of the most genuine emotion is shown between her and the hero's brother. Real sparks fly! Real eyes light up! Good for them! In all, this movie seemed immature, very pretty to look at, and a sad under-use of its talented stars.

This Hallmark romance was written by its star, Jessica Lowndes, and she deserves credit for that. In her story, she plays Brooklyn Moore, a matchmaker with an unerring talent for creating lasting couples. But somehow she has been unable to find love herself.

When Devin (Wes Brown), a former best friend, comes back into her life, he draws the attention of her most important client. Brooklyn's involvement in their courtship is reminiscent of "Cyrano", but it plays out in a less romantic way. Indeed, it is somewhat cringe-worthy, because viewers want to see true romance blossom.

Though Lowndes has created a role nearly perfect for herself and her vocal talents, the lack of chemistry between the primaries leaves this story far short of the moon.

Mainly, I really like the two leads, Jessica Lowndes and Wes Brown. What bothered me was the part played by Miranda Frigon. She looks too old for him and it kept bothering me. It's a silly story anyway! But Lowndes and Brown made it worth watching.