The Heartbreak Agency (2024)

I decided to finish my February romcom adventure with The Heartbreak Agency, a German film released by Netflix. Sorry, Hallmark, I can’t take any more Jane Austen this month. Maybe I’ll watch that last movie next month. Who knows.

Karl (Laurence Rupp) is a writer whose girlfriend just broke up with him. She said she got advice from a therapist saying Karl was unable to love. Upset, Karl gets an assignment from his editor to write a piece about Maria (Rosalie Thomass), the therapist that runs The Heartbreak Agency. He thought he wrote a great hit piece. Instead, he gets fired from the magazine and can’t find another job. His editor agrees to take him back if he actually goes through the therapy and writes a real emotionally based piece about it. Karl was in for more than he bargained for.

Like a lot of foreign films, The Heartbreak Agency does drag a little in the middle. In an American film, we would get a lot of will-they-won’t-they tension. While there is a little bit of that here, most of the middle of the movie is based around showing us what a crap person Karl is. At least emotionally. He seems like a really fun guy until you need a shoulder to cry on.

It’s not a bad movie but, if you are used to American films, you might find yourself a little bored. Personally, I enjoyed it. I do wish there was a little more interaction between Karl and Maria’s daughter, Hedi (Cora Trube), but I can understand why they didn’t put it in.

Rating: B

Beautiful Wedding (2024)

At the beginning of the month, I watched last year’s Beautiful Disaster. Of course I had to watch the sequel, Beautiful Wedding. Let’s see if this one holds up.

Immediately after the end of Beautiful Disaster, Abby (Virginia Gardner), Travis (Dylan Sprouse), Mer (Libe Barer), and Shepley (Austin North) party in Las Vegas. When the group wakes up, they find cash strewn all over the room and a video showing Abby and Travis getting married. After finding the legal marriage license, the group takes a trip to Mexico for the honeymoon. However, during the trip Abby and Travis realize that maybe they shouldn’t stay married after all.

Much like the first movie, this one is also all over the place. We’ve almost completely abandoned the back story of Abby playing poker. It comes up in the beginning when they find all the cash and it’s referenced one other time as a throwaway line. Beyond that, Wedding focuses entirely on Travis being super jealous of every guy Abby speaks to and Abby running away every time Travis makes a mistake or a woman hits on him. There are so many instances where they could have just talked to each other but they don’t. I think we’re supposed to believe their volatile because they’re 19. However, neither of them seem to really learn from their mistakes.

With that said, this is a sort of fun movie in the “everyone is a terrible person and none of them should be around other people” type of way. There are two women that spend every moment they are on screen literally throwing themselves at Travis, even after he says no multiple times. I hate them. Mer and Shepley get into a huge fight that probably could have been just a simple discussion. (They did a similar thing in the first movie so maybe this is their thing.) And Abby and Travis do everything but talk to each other. Is this a movie I would watch again? No. Do I regret watching it? Also no. I do hope that there isn’t a third movie coming though. I don’t think I want to watch these people any more.

Rating: B-

Players (2024)

I was going to give up on romcoms now that Valentine’s Day is over. But then I found out that Netflix dropped Players ON Valentine’s Day. Of course I had to watch it.

Mackenzie (Gina Rodriguez), or Mack as she prefers, is a sports writers living in New York City. With her best friends/co-workers - Adam (Damon Wayans Jr), Brannagan (Augustus Prew), and Little (Joel Courtney) - have a book of plays they use to hook up with people. But when Mack catches feelings for her latest hook-up, Nick (Tom Ellis), the gang has to find a new play to turn this one night stand into a relationship.

I’m not sure who this movie is aimed at. Mack is supposed to be like a “guy’s girl.” She’s really into sports, she isn’t friends with any other women, and she sleeps around with no social consequences. (C’mon, if this were any other woman, she would be slut shamed the entire movie.) I think the Mack and Nick characters were gender swapped at some point. The characters make a little more sense then. But anyway, I don’t think that Mack and the guys appeal to women looking for a romcom. Nor do I think they appeal to men…who are looking for a romcom? This is firmly in the romcom section of Netflix. So….yeah, I don’t know who this movie is for.

And mostly that is because everyone in this movie kinda sucks. Mack is a very self-centered woman and we aren’t really given any reasons to root for her. Nick is pretty awful the entire time. The only reason I can see Mack wanting a relationship with him is because Tom Ellis is a very good looking man. Not a great basis for a relationship. Adam, Brannagan, and Little don’t get a lot of characterization. From the beginning, it’s easy to tell who Mack is going to end up with. I’m still not sure why though.

Sadly, Players let me down. I was hoping to like this movie. It had some really good actors and what I thought could have maybe been an interesting plot. But it falls completely flat. It’s a skip for me.

Rating: D

Love & Jane (2024)

These Jane Austen-inspired movies are going to make me hate Hallmark. Just when the Christmas movies were getting better. It’s time for Love & Jane.

Lilly (Alison Sweeney) is obsessed with Jane Austen novels. When her life begins to go awry, she wishes she could ask the author for advice. That night, the ghost of Jane Austen (Kendra Anderson) appears to help Lilly through her difficult times.

Yes, this is as dumb as it sounds. Lilly, a rather self-centered woman, doesn’t like technology and thinks everything was better in Jane’s time. Of course, she works for a marketing company and uses a movie version of Siri or Alexa. But technology, bad. And, from what we see, her entire life revolves around Jane Austen. It’s pretty annoying and I have no idea why anyone puts up with her.

I’d talk about the guys in the movie but they are barely there. Lilly breaks up with her boyfriend, Martin (Matthew Kevin Anderson), is the beginning of the movie because he gets a job in Chicago. (Even though he noted that she could move there if she wanted…) But the big romantic interest is Trevor (Benjamin Ayres), who is a client of her firm. He basically pops in now and again to remind us that he exists even though he has no real effect on the plot. This movie really is a romance movie between Lilly and Jane.

There are a few more movies coming up in the Loveuary catalog. I hope that they are better than this.

Rating: D

A Scottish Love Scheme (2024)

Hallmark must really have a thing for Scotland now. In 2021, there was A Castle For Christmas. 2023 was A Merry Scottish Christmas. And now they gave us A Scottish Love Scheme. How many Hallmark movies can Scotland handle?

Lily (Erica Durance) has recently left her job marketing for a family brewery. Now she has time to take a mother-daughter trip to Scotland with her mom, Cait (Jo Cameron Brown), to visit their friends, the Campbells. While they are there, Cait schemes with her old friend, Mairi (Juliet Cadzow), to set Lily up with Mairi’s son, Logan (Jordan Young).

For a movie that claims to be about schemes, there isn’t a lot of scheming going on. Unless you want to count Mairi telling Logan that he should take Lily to dinner at a specific restaurant a “scheme.” I think schemes are supposed to be kinda secret, right? With the exception of one instance toward the beginning of the movie, Cait and Mairi must think their kids are pretty stupid to not realize what they are doing. Then again, Lily and Logan never say anything about it so maybe they are stupid…

If we look beyond the unschemey schemes, the rest of the movie is just fine. A little boring, as usual, but there is nothing particularly offensive about it. Everything just takes a very long time to happen. I would have liked it a little more if Cait and Mairi were a little more sneaky about what they were doing. Maybe make this a bit more of a mystery romance instead. Well, at least we got some really pretty shots of Scotland.

Rating: B-

Paging Mr. Darcy (2024)

The first movie in Hallmark Channel’s Jane Austen series is titled Paging Mr. Darcy. Yes, most of these movies are “Pride and Prejudice” themed. Hopefully this won’t be too bad.

Eloise Cavendish (Mallory Jansen) is a literary professor who specializes in Jane Austen. She is the keynote speaker at this year’s Jane Austen League of America conference. While at the conference, she plans on visiting her sister, Mia (Lillian Doucet-Roche), and meet Dr. Victoria Jennings (Carolyn Scott), a member of the hiring committee at Princeton. After her plane lands, she meets Sam (Will Kemp) dressed as Mr. Darcy. Much to Eloise’s dismay, he is to be her guest liaison for the entire conference. She would rather not partake in the romanticism of Austen’s works. But she does need to impress Dr. Jennings…

I will admit that I’m not a big Jane Austen fan. It’s possible that most of these movies will go right over my head. With that noted, Paging Mr. Darcy is rather boring. Eloise is against all of the costumes and the ball and the general party vibe of the conference. But from what I saw, all of that barely took place. Sure, Sam was dressed as Mr. Darcy most of the time but that was his job. And even then, he took some pictures with some attendees in the beginning then he was busy crafting bonnets with Dr. Jennings, who happens to be his aunt, or hanging out with Eloise - teaching her how to dance, making desserts for the ball, or just randomly chatting. If I was an attendee, I might think this was the worst conference ever. Especially with a keynote speaker that didn’t even want to be there!

Since this is the first movie in the Loveuary series, I’m really hoping the other movies will be better. Hallmark has this weird tendency to put the worst movies in the beginning of the season and the really good ones either smack dab in the middle or at the very end. Cross your fingers the rest of these are better.

Rating: C-

Betty's Bad Luck In Love (2024)

Hallmark is pulling their weight with the February romance movies. Be warned - while I have Betty’s Bad Luck In Love right now, Hallmark is doing a “Loveuary” thing featuring movies about Jane Austen. There will be 4 movies, one each week. But let’s see what Betty is up to first.

Because Betty (Laci J. Mailey) chose to talk to the cute boy at school, a rival girl cursed her with bad luck in love for the rest of her life. As an adult, every time Betty gets close to a guy, she immediately shuts down the relationship, fearing the worst will happen to him. Can she find a way to break the curse and find love?

I’m not going to lie. Betty’s Bad Luck In Love is kinda terrible. Our title character spends almost the entire movie freaking out at every little thing her current beau, Alex (Marco Grazzini), does then complains to her best friend, Mya (Meghan Heffern), about it. Keep in mind that these are all adults. Alex plays rugby in his free time. Betty literally goes to one of his scrimmage games and storms into the field to stop the game so he doesn’t get hurt. And somehow Alex forgives her atrocious behavior. Even if you are worried about a loved one getting hurt, that is part of life. Especially when we’re talking about adults that can make their own decisions. Does she think that Alex doesn’t know the risks of playing a game like rugby?

Then there’s her relationship with Mya. Mya is getting married to Raul (Daylin Willis). As Mya plans the wedding (with very little help from her best friend, by the way), she is running into snags. Her florist can’t get the flowers she wants, the reception venue she booked is double booked, her soon-to-be mother-in-law demands Mya invites her friends to the wedding. All things that can be very big problems. Betty helps a little with the flower issue (by looking up flowers on her phone) but kinda shrugs off the other problems with an “Oh, I’m sorry” then goes back to complaining about her love life. She really is an awful friend.

I was hoping that this was going to be more entertaining. Instead, it’s mostly whining. They could have gone with a magic theme…that would have been cool. They could have gone with a Murphy’s Law type of theme. Nope, they chose a hysterical woman upset over absolutely nothing. This should not be on the Hallmark channel.

Rating: D

Shortcomings (2023)

Shortcomings is another random movie I found under the romance category on Netflix. This movie made me wished I planned the movies I watch more.

Ben (Justin H. Min) is a manager at a failing movie theater. He is unhappy with his life, including his relationship with Miko (Ally Maki). When Miko moves to New York City for a three-month internship and his best friend, Alice (Sherry Cola), goes to New York City for a new girlfriend, Ben doesn’t know what to do with himself. Thinking that white women are the ideal, he tries to date one of his employees, Autumn (Tavi Gevinson). When that fails, he tries to date Sasha (Debby Ryan). When that also fails, he follows Miko and Alice to New York City, only to find that they have both found better lives there.

So…I think I know what the movie was trying to say. I think it was mostly about internal hatred and racism and how that effects your relationship with others. Because if that isn’t what this was about, Ben is a complete and total asshole. I mean, he’s a jerk either way but if he hates himself so much, it is a little more understandable. Unfortunately, we don’t really get any internal dialogue from him. All we have to go on are his actions, which, in case you haven’t gotten it yet, all suck. He is a terrible person.

However, you can have a good movie with a terrible lead character. It isn’t unheard of. But I’m not sure this is a good movie. It’s not a bad movie. It just feels like it’s missing something. If we knew a little more about what was happening inside Ben’s head, it might give us a little more insight as to why he is so awful to people he’s supposed to love. I understand that this movie is aimed at an Asian American audience. I am not their target audience. And maybe that is why I feel so confused about Ben’s intentions.

Rating: B-

Romance With A Twist (2024)

Unsurprisingly, Hallmark has some romance movies to get us ready for Valentine’s Day this year. And it’s starting with Romance With A Twist.

Luna (Jocelyn Hudon) was a dancer before life cancelled her plans. Now she works for her family’s construction company. As acts are getting ready for the town’s new arts festival, aerialist Bennett (Olivier Renaud) is suddenly without a partner. Bennett’s sister, Gabby (Candice Lidstone) suggests Luna. Begrudgingly Bennett agrees to train the former dancer to use aerial silks. But will she be able to learn them in time for their show at the festival?

Going into this, I fully expected the half-hearted attempts at reality that we get with the Christmas movies. However, I found out that Renaud was actually a circus perform and Hudon was actually a ballet dancer. Yes, Hallmark has cast actors that really have the same skillset as their characters! It definitely gave the movie a more realistic feel.

While the acting and the stunts were very good, the script was a little thin. We didn’t quite get to see Luna and Bennett falling in love. Luna seemed to have a bit of a crush on Bennett, presumably because she saw his rippling muscles, but we never get the sense that Bennett enjoys being in Luna’s company. He spends a lot of the movie almost brooding about random stupid things.

Despite that, I enjoyed the movie. Moreso for the aerial silks, which I do wish they used more. Of all of the Hallmark-esque romance movies I have watched, this is one of the better ones.

Rating: B+

Good Grief ( 2024)

So I decided to do a February romcom/romance movie thing. I turned on Netflix and went to their romance movies and found Daniel Levy’s new movie, Good Grief. Since I generally enjoy his work, I popped it on. I don’t think this is how I wanted to start the month of romance.

Marc (Daniel Levy) is living the good life with his husband, Oliver (Luke Evans). A year after Oliver died in a car accident, Marc opens a card from him confessing that he found someone else in Paris, where Marc discovered that Oliver had secretly been renting an apartment. Determined to find out more, Marc travels to Paris with his best friends, Thomas (Himesh Patel) and Sophie (Ruth Negga). The three of them come to terms with the difficulties each of them have faced in their personal lives.

This was a really sad movie. I mean, I should have known it from the title but I didn’t expect it to be this sad. It is entirely about Marc’s transition through the stages of grief and accepting that, while he loved Oliver and Oliver loved him, his husband was not the person Marc thought he was. At the same time, we have secondary plots with Sophie having commitment (and maybe alcoholism) issues and Thomas being afraid of not being enough for his boyfriends (and maybe still being in love with Marc since they previously dated).

Don’t get me wrong. Good Grief isn’t a bad movie. It is very well done. But if you aren’t in the right mindset to watch three very broken people learn how to better themselves, it might not be for you. I’m glad I watched it, I’m just not sure it should have been the first movie of February.

Rating: B