My Sweet Austrian Holiday

6.3 stars.

I worked my way through this story with much patience and low expectations. It has fairly low ratings after all, not in the five zone, but just barely in the six. This indicates, generally speaking, a hit or miss scenario. In this case, it's a big miss for achieving average status and fits securely in the take-it-or-leave-it category, but at least it's better than the could-care-less movies that are actually rare (under 6.0).

So yes, this is below average for sure, it's about as cookie-cutter as can be, and it's about chocolate and about a real estate tycoon who is buying out a building and a person who is trying to save their business. It's probably the most used plot of Hallmark films.

I thought Will Kemp and Brittany Bristow had great chemistry as Charlotte and Henry who randomly meet at a charity. The two develop a friendship over chocolate. Charlotte is trying to save her grandmother's chocolate shop which she inherited. The problem, a development company has bought up the entire block...with Charlotte being the only hold out as she desperately tries to get her shop historical status. What Charlotte doesn't know is that it's Henry's company that is trying to buy her shop...oh! And she is trying to win a chocolate competition.

I was a little weirded out that Austria was filled with Brits and Canadians. Where were the Austrians? This did seem a little derivative, but I just like Will Kemp so much I enjoyed it anyway.

This is really a very slow-moving story. After a half-hour they'd done nothing I was interested in. My wife wanted to hang on a little longer, but after another ten minutes she decided to pull the plug on this one.

This is another of the extremely tired "losing business to new development" trope, and it really makes no sense here. I had no interest in the character of the male lead, and very little in the character of the female lead. Really, no tension and no interesting relationship building. Dialogue less interesting than my neighbors gossiping over a fence.

Added to this were very annoying affected British accents ... in Austria? Why? The Canadian actors were the worst, but the Englishman in the lead tried to affect an upper-crust accent that doesn't belong to him. I had to look him up to even convince myself he's actually English.

Not recommended.

Will Kemp is usually very good in the Hallmark Christmas movies, but even he can't save this mashup of over used Hallmark Christmas movie plots. My wife and I started watching the Hallmark Christmas movies during the pandemic for some light hearted enjoyment, but the repetitive plots get tired after a few years. We gave up on this one within 15 minutes. Been there. Done that! The "the building in peril from a real estate developer" and the "food competition" plots mashed into the same movie and moved to a different city or a different country doesn't make it a "new" story. It's like playing Mad Libs. They change the characters names, the location of the town or city, and combine a few different tropes and think that makes it "new".

I used to really like Brittany Bristow in her earlier films. But for the last few years, it hasn't been the same. Will Kemp is OK, but no more than that for me. I thought he was very stiff and seemed uncomfortable with Brittany in this movie. And this is really too bad, because the plot was certainly one of the most oft repeated Hallmark templates ever. Sometimes, I can put up with that if the movie has some good dialogue or some amusing little additions, or some good acting or other charms. This was strictly by the book, including dumbness on the part of both the female and male leads. Although the foreign setting of "Austria" (Really Bulgaria) did add some interest. Will didn't tell the truth, the old lack of communication leading to the last 15 minute bust up, And Brittany taking way too long to figure out who he was and to find proof of her stores historical significance. It didn't offend me, just bored me, so a generous 5 out of 10.