Review's Resort: Talkie Tuesday: Sweet Home Carolina

"Sometimes you have to go back to go forward."

Hello everyone!

I am now going into my established period of Hallmark Channel movies, wherein I will sit down and watch nothing but those productions for a few nights in a row.

Why, you ask?

I have no idea.

Sometimes it just so happens that I feel like going through the corny romance, and occasionally I'll even find movies that I actually honestly like, movies I will return to and rewatch time and time again, or at least on occasion more than the one-timers.

And then of course, sometimes I will find movies that sound really great on paper but end up being not so great in the execution.

Sadly, this is what happened with the subject of tonight's blog.

Sweet Home Carolina just wasn't all that.

On paper, however, it sounds intriguing and something to lose yourself in for an hour and a half: divorced mother of two moves back to her small hometown, reconnects with an old flame and eventually finds a balance between family, love and happiness, leading to a happily ever after.

Add Paul Greene into the mix as the actor cast to portray said old flame, and you'd think you had a winner.

Sadly, not so.

The stoyline is honestly pretty basic in essence, like I said: Diane, the mother of Aubrey and Andrea, works at a big firm (I think it's got something to do with money and stock, but I'm not entirely sure) but is currently going through some issues with her ex-husband, who seems to have more time for everything else except for his daughters.

As this movie was released around Mother's Day though, you can also see that the family has basically forgotten to spend time together in general.

This takes a toll on Diane's professional life and her boss tells her, kindly, to "take some time" and figure out what she wants, which is basically just a super sweet way of telling her she's just about fired, right when she doesn't need it but does need the money.

So when her lawyer contacts her about a will she's beneficiary off, Diane decides this might be the perfect opportunity to try something new.

After all, how bad could the house her aunt (or was it great aunt?) left her?

With her daughters packed in the car for a trip to Diane's hometown of Marion, SC, they find that the house is in serious need of some repairs, but equally that they might not hate it here as much as they thought they would.

Andrea gets a job at an arts/crafts store run by Luke, who just so happens to be Diane's old flame, and she finds some sparks herself with the other of Luke's helpers, Toby, who was abandoned by his mother and practically raised by Luke through most of his life.

While Diane waitresses and reconnects with old friends (and flames), her daughters start settling into life down south and the family actually starts becoming a family again because they now have time to spend together and to consider what the other needs.

Of course just as things start looking promising for Luke and Diane, Diane's boss shows up with one of her clients to ask her to come back, because, as she pointed out right before getting booted, she's qualified and definitely managed to keep the clients happy. Well now they want her back, and Luke asks her to stay, because why don't they give this a real go, like they should have done the first time she left?

But Diane feels it might be better for the girls to return to LA (wait woman, didn't you decide it'd be best for the kids to go with you back home about a movie-hour ago?), and so they leave Luke behind while she tackles her old job again.

Considering she's pretty miserable, however, the girls stage an intervention and call Luke down to LA, who proposes and the trio of girls move out of LA for good this time.

They're going to stay in Marion and form a family unit with Luke and Toby. And Mister, the old beagle that's there purely for cuteness reasons.

The end!

I think my main issue with this movie, as much as the story seems to work on paper, was the actress who played Diane - and the way Diane was written. Half the time she was being more dramatic than her teenage daughter, and the other half she burst into uncontrollable laughter when she really shouldn't have been laughing (like, when a man gets down on one knee and shows you a ring, you're NOT supposed to start giggling like a maniac). Maybe the producers and director thought it'd look cute, but it was only annoying. No adult woman with two near-adult kids giggles that stupidly or that much, at least not from the group I know.

I was by far more invested in the subplot of Andrea and Toby and they didn't get nearly enough screen time. Otherwise, not even Paul Greene could save this piece for me.