Game of Love

I'm a big fan of Kimberly Sustad who plays Audrey. But her damaged character is really self absorbed. She's always buried in her phone, wears headphones in public around other people, and wears a hoodie on a date to a fancy restaurant. She's really oblivious. And at one point there's a weird shift in tone when Audrey gets manic at work.

Brooks Darnell is very smooth as Matthew. He has a great line about "brands" in which he describes himself as a "savvy professional" and Audrey as a "stubborn, indie creative". Both descriptions are spot on. Matthew also had a good line about the "thousand years of solitude" that he spent waiting for Audrey. It reminded me of the classic Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel of a similar name.

There's also some good direction and editing. For example, right after Matthew notes that love releases the same endorphins as eating chocolate, there's some fun scenes from the refrigerator POV. And there's an amusing early scene where Audrey tries to think about love:

"Love love, love love love; Love is codependency; Sacrificing one's sense of self, that's for sure; Jealousy, distortion of reality; Loss of control."

There's also a groan funny Dad "Joke of the week" featured on the board at work:

"I want to become a chess player, but I have too much of a checkered past."

The writing may seem cheesy at times to some, but most of us Hallmark fans have a high tolerance for cheesy love lines like this one:

"I kinda like the idea that two different stars can collide and make something so different and beautiful".

I also thought the Indigo seminar was really well done. I expected to be making fun of it but, instead, I found it to be rather insightful and a clever way to reveal things about Matthew and Audrey. But then the movie slogs through an annoying and implausible conflict in the 4th quarter (an all too frequent problem with some Hallmark movies). The initial assignment (to create a market ready board game and submit it to a "tabletop" competition in just 4 weeks) was ridiculous and all too typical of Hallmark's tendency to feature plots driven by artificial and unrealistic deadlines. And there is an equally ridiculous "business" decision by The Board in the 4th quarter that makes no sense (and annoys everybody, including the audience).

It was also unclear to me why the company hired a marketing consultant to help design a board game in the first place. Plus, I never got any kind of idea about what was actually in the board game. I just saw circles on a board with some huge player pieces. We saw Evie (a customer who never leaves) playing it with a stranger and some random people playing it at Boardwalk Café and Games (which is in Abbotsford, British Columbia, not Seattle) but we never hear any of the questions they presumably ask each other or see any interaction whatsoever.

But worst of all, I just didn't buy the love story. At best, this seemed like a movie about colleagues learning to work together (although the eager beaver co-workers seemed like caricatures). They were pleasant together, but I just didn't feel the sparks. And those sparks are kinda the key to making a romance work.

There's a much better "game developers to lovers" story in "On the 12th Date of Christmas" with Mallory Jansen and Tyler Hynes.

This movie, Game of Love, stars the handsome Brooks Darnell and the well-known Kimberly Sustad, along with several other promising supporting actors. I may not be well-versed in the names, fair warning, but I will do my best to use the character names.

Matthew (Darnell) is a marketing research consultant assigned to create a game that focuses on love connections; this is also true for Audrey (Sustad), who is a game creator in her own right. They - together - start this path of creating a game from scratch. They use the talents of Audrey's staff at the company funding this project, a young woman (Patty) and young man (i am not sure of his name) - along with her friend (Evie?) from the local game cafe, the Boardwalk.

The premise is strong, but the execution isn't riveting - I think this is where the 1 star is lost for me, because while it is somewhat interesting, the game creation process is probably a bit too nuanced to draw in the normal Hallmark viewer. They do some impressive tossing-around of terminology (a funny scene) and then venture into the creative process. All along, Audrey is getting texts from an online friend that she has never met (you can see there is some foreshadowing here). These texts are more of a friendship/'venting buddy' nature, and this element works well to help reinforce whatever point the plot may be trying to make.

I really enjoyed the movie, but found no truly romantic chemistry throughout, until the very end, when Audrey relents and learns to feel her feelings and actually let people inside her heart. The movie could have better developed the 'why' behind her closed-heart status, and they also could have shown a more clear realization on Darnell's part that his texting "online buddy" (spoiler) is Audrey.

I also loved the supporting roles, and am disappointed that none of the cast credits I've seen online (either on Hallmark, IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, and more) will offer proper credit to each supporting role. They spoke and did a great job, so why would we not have that info?

I Digress because I really enjoyed the overall movie; I loved:

• Brooks - he's awesome and super alluring in some way. I'm old enough to be his...older sister...so I just figure he's magnetic to almost everyone.

• Kimberley - while I was not a fan of hers initially, she did a great job of at least giving me a reaction or feeling -- some movies leave me so disinterested, I have no opinion at all on the character.

• the scenery, of course - way to go, as always, HM!

• the lovely relationships abounding -- so much love and inclusion in the entire movie among friends, coworkers, etc. It reminds me a lot of my own life, which is incredibly fortunate/blessed to have good people. I love watching movies that reinforce the goodness still in the world.

I would love to see it again and will.

6.4 stars.

Imagine a nerdy and uptight board game creater (Sustad) with a predilection for seclusion, who meets a relaxed but sophisticated and personable businessman. These two are total opposites and this story is about how he softens her hard-shelled and crusty exterior and molds her into a more likable and cooperative woman. She eventually learns how to be a collaborator instead of a distance maker. To put it simply: this is about a woman becoming better. While he's helping her improve, unbeknownst to them both, he's falling for her. She tries to push him away more than once, but eventually it all works out and she falls for him too. They have to understand love in order to make a game about love, but the only way to learn of love is to fall in love.

'Game of Love' is mediocre at best because it lacks charismatic personalities. Both of our leads are difficult to familiarize with. They have strange quirks and weird reactions to things they shouldn't; she is stiff and his performance doesn't make up for the writer's failed attempts at comedy.

This is not a review of the movie, but rather a comment on the information accompanying the movie.

Notice that the "top cast" and "full cast" listings both have only eight names. There is NO MENTION of (AT LEAST) the actors who portray Patty, the Asian woman on the team, Evie, the older woman who plays the game near the end of the movie and gets a date, and Susie.

What is even weirder is that, in the captions accompanying the pictures, the actresses who play Patty and Evie are not named--complete ignored--while the other actors' names are listed, as usual!

Why the "boycott" of the woman? What is going on here???

The story is pretty much along common lines for a Hallmark Saturday night. The leads, Audrey and Matthew, must work together for a work project. In this case they are to develop a new board game. The goal of the game is about bringing the players together in love. Audrey and Matthew start out totally at cross purposes. Is it any surprise that the game development and the story seem to parallel each other and that being the case it is likewise not surprising that the whole thing is pretty predictable. I hesitate to call it a subplot because it is embedded in the story, but if you will, a subplot is Audrey learning to accept help from others.

I was a little surprised at how the conflict developed but I can't expand on that without giving a spoiler.

Audrey, at the beginning, is quite the narcissist and I found that difficult to accept in the usually appealing Kimberley Sustad. It's not that Sustad doesn't play the part well, but more that my familiarity with the actor is such that I didn't want her to act that way. It's inevitable that Audrey's personality will undergo a 180 degree change, but I was surprised how long that took. Brooks Darnell did an excellent job across from her and after she lightened up there was good chemistry.

The dialogue and comedy are ok but not sparkling. I was happy that the movie didn't depend on overly exaggerated silly situations for laughs. Both Sustad and Darnell have good delivery and timing. I would definitely say that it was their mutual performance that was the most appealing part of this movie, but I'm not quite sure how much I will want to watch this again.