I never write reviews because honestly, most Hallmark movies are just comfy, cozy romances that are just supposed to be fun to watch.
THIS was literally everything but that. Like tell me why this movie lowk stressed me out.
I understand the whole flawed character plot point but it went from flawed to straight up like what are you doing?! She was just so self centered and uptight and just wanted to always blame things on everyone else instead of taking ownership.
Don't get me wrong, she obviously doesn't need to be perfect but throughout the whole movie, she acted like some damsel in distress pick me as if she didn't have an amazing and loving father, amazing brothers who are also going through their mother's death who so clearly favored Alex, and supportive friends.
It was so weird how the whole plot point where the mom CHEATS is just totally looked over as if she never did anything wrong. Not to mention Alex continuously praises Nina and then gets with Brad like hello? And Nina was literally so supportive and was there to comfort her.
There were also just so many plot points that were brushed over that I feel like needed to be discussed more. Like the actually fight between Brad and Nina, the whole mom cheating, her teaching journey (like why did she never wanna go into teaching after being fired, how did she get back into it) - this part had so much potential because they made it seem like such a complex storyline and just did nothing to emphasize it.
Also, the romance with Garrett lowk just seemed unnecessary like she never considered his perspective at least with him feeling uncomfortable which if one of my significant other's friends told me to get my act up so I could be checked off an item on a list, would make me feel so weird but anyways. I also think that if this plot point hadn't been there, there would have been so much more potential in expanding the parts of the movie that I felt were missing.
Now lastly, to the acting. I am so sorry but at times, I didn't feel the emotions that the protagonist was displaying. It lacked depth and there were so many emotions that could've been evoked but I just didn't feel any of them. Part of this could be the dialogue but still.
I genuinely loved the idea, the execution was just so bland and flat. I loved the idea of the list but maybe it was just too much that we ended up missing so much of the actual movie and the character depth.