In this movie, we see a woman finding herself when she sets aside the expectations she has made based on what she "should" be doing rather than what she wants, thanks to the help of the leading man. I loved the chemistry between the leads and liked that the initial love interest was not portrayed as a bad person, just not a good fit for her. I am happy to see the general storyline of Hallmark movies is improving over the years - she was finally making decisions aligned with her true intentions with the help of another person, rather than falling in love and having her ambitions sidelined.
Nonetheless, this movie was way too simple. Travelling and being a natural wanderer with curiosity for other places/cultures, versus not travelling at all and wanting to stay in the lab/office all day... there is no in between! The conversations between the leads were deep but at the same time very one dimensional. It seemed like a lot of their conversations were voicing the same "deep" thoughts. It would have been more fun to see them doing fun things together while at the same time establishing a deeper connection, like at the oyster restaurant and with the dancing. And, while he helped her grow a lot, I would have liked to see her help him grow more too.
Also, I had a gripe with the breakup between George and Lizzie: Hallmark seems to have these relationships that are clearly not right, but nonetheless exist in an advanced stage; and when the couple inevitably breaks up due to not being right for one another, there is somehow absolutely zero heartbreak. Maybe it's just because I can't relate, but that seems very unrealistic. But I get for plot reasons that they have to move forward and get the two leads together once the inevitable breakup has happened. I did like that they had a time jump to make it a bit more natural that she was okay with her ex-fiance dating their employee.
Finally, the historical nature of the relationship between the leads could have been a bit more teased out before 10 minutes before the movie was over. I was a bit taken aback when (spoiler) David told Elizabeth he had loved her since he was 13. It made sense given the information we had received by that point in the movie and wasn't totally out of left field, but it also did not seem like the most natural progression. It would have been better to have received more of this sort of perspective through his conversations with his sister about Elizabeth, and to have shown that he was bummed out about Elizabeth and George. I guess we did hear him telling her about things she had done in the past that clearly showed he had been paying more attention to her than she would have thought, but for some reason it just didn't seem like enough. Maybe I am hung up on the fact that they didn't really focus on how they got to now, and how he had felt when she started dating his brother.
Overall though, I would definitely recommend for the cuteness and the chemistry.
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