Romance avec une star

Former magazine photographer Jessie (Natalie Dreyfuss) left the big city to return to her family's vineyard and doing wedding gigs. Her sister Sophia is taking over more of the responsibilities. Kate is the next bride and her brother Shane Brown (Anthony Konechny) is a big TV star.

This is Reel One doing something like Hallmark. The meet-cute is absolutely great. The two leads are pretty and nice and great for this type of movie. There isn't much drama which fits for the genre. Unlike her uncle, Natalie is not required to do any big acting. This is fine especially for this genre.

The network I watched this on and the production company that produced it can both be hot and cold, so when I chose between two Saturday night rom/coms, the Hallmark movie won. And it had one of the worst premises I have ever seen so I was done in 15 minutes and switched to my recording of this movie.

The story is fairly common where it revolves around the week before a wedding with some leisure and some planning. Shane is a huge movie star. Jessie was once a top photographer but left the rat race behind with a vengeance. She has some aspects of her personality that are borderline irresponsible. She might be mistaken for a slacker, but she keeps coming through.

I'm not a fan of when the leads meet and one or both tears into the other. This movie had a brief moment where the big movie star said leave me alone, but they quickly cleared up the misunderstanding. I liked it.

The conflict is done a little differently than you might expect in a couple of different ways. And unlike a lot of rom/coms that blow something totally out of proportion, in this movie it makes sense why one of them is so upset. In this genre you know there has to be a reconciliation, but this obstacle was almost too much to overcome.

Natalie Dreyfuss and Anthony Konechny have good chemistry. A lot of screen time early is spent with them getting to know each other. The banter is good.

BTW - this movie gets a D-, almost an F, in my pet peeve, size of text messages.

A sweet and gentle film, visually gorgeous settings, locations, interiors and clothes.

But a warning on the music: viewers will hear and see the famous and much-loved minuet from Boccherini's string quintet (Opus 11 No.5), apparently miraculously performed by just four players instead of the necessary five, both at rehearsal and in performance. (This is the unspoken joke for the audience in the old movie The Ladykillers, where neither the incompetent criminals nor their adorable landlady realise that they are rehearsing a quintet upstairs having brought in only four instruments).

Back to this movie: next, a second violin and a viola can also apparently share a desk and sheet-music, despite their music being written in different clefs.

Thirdly, all of them - still only four players - can apparently read their string quintet music from a printed sheet of piano music.

And at the end, I'm still left wondering where that second cello needed for the quintet has disappeared to...

Apart from these hilarious musical howlers, it's a delightful film.

This is actually rare Reel One Entertainment TV movie which is technically done very well which means they can be properly done, but most of time they aren't - they always have to screw something. Maybe there was a bit of more stock footage then it should, but that would be it. Audio quality was good and soundtrack was on the mark.

Natalie Dreyfuss was good again, but so was the whole cast. Writing and directing were pretty good, too.

The only reason why I didn't rated this movie as above average (7*) are the following two things: 1) Jessie's prehistoric Ford F-100 truck was over the top.

2) Fake location. No, it wasn't shot in California no matter how many times they said and showed stock footage. If you watched other ROE TV movies, you will recognize Kelowna, BC, Canada because so many other movies was shot there, and it just ruins immersion. It's the same stupid thing they copy from Hallmark, but to be honest Hallmark is way worse in that department. I can understand shooting in BC, and pretending to be WA or OR, but CA is just way too much.

And don't watch trailer if you plan to watch the movie as with every other ROE TV movie, it shows everything!

I loved it but honestly i feel like we have been robbed on the ending. Yes we can be in suspense but i feel like the plot switched and went on fast forward. I think you lost track of the purpose of the movie and focused on fun. The acting of some characters is very poor and giving "I am just acting" vibes.

I need a rematch with the movie on a redo, remake and re acted, with a better ending and more open on our suspense. Its a romantic movie not a romntic suspense film. We cant be left with question marks. I need details on wlhat happens next. Even in the climax of the movie, you guys jumped the plot.