I totally get that Hallmark Movies and Mysteries is something completely different than The Hallmark Channel. I really do. What I’m about to say may be somewhat controversial – Hallmark Movies and Mysteries needs to update their movies and make them less suitable for my 80 year old grandma who is looking for something healthy to watch after she graduates from college Wheel of Fortune nighttime food festival.
If there’s one thing I’m, it’s blunt. Sometimes that works against me, I know. But I’m going to say this: it’s not that this movie is bad (it’s not), it’s just that the level of cheese is so high that I sometimes felt secondhand embarrassment.
While I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a fan of anything involving lost mail (you know how many pieces of mail you’ve lost over the years, Post Office), I do like the premise of the film. Reuniting lost letters where they’re supposed to be. But part of me wonders if that’s always such a good idea when I watch a film like this.
One thing that Quality mark always does well is that they know the human heart. They understand that people in their films are looking for a sense of hope. We want to escape our lives, to feel like there is something that understands what we want. And what is that? To be loved.
Signed, Sealed, Delivered: A Tale of Three Letters achieves just that. It shows us different people in different types of relationships that they hope you can see yourself in. Eric Mabius, Kristin Booth, Crystal Lowe, Geoff Gustafson, And Rhiannon fish take a script and bring it to life with so much innocence and joy that you know they’re doing everything they can to give you that hope.
So where does it fall short? There’s just too much going on in the film. While it explores lost letters and all they entail and ties it all together into a package, it doesn’t delve deep enough into the relationships. It feels like it should have been a series, with the Postables having a different letter each episode, but exploring one couple or one issue at a time.
With so much going on in their lives – both couples and Charlie – it felt wrong to cram it into a two hour movie. It felt overwhelming and sometimes out of control. It’s because of these moments that I sometimes couldn’t help but shudder.
I couldn’t help but cringe at the fact that each character was oblivious to what the others were feeling. They didn’t realize what the others were going through. Instead, they pushed their own agendas on the other. While things work out in the end, I couldn’t cheer for the happy endings. Why? Because I had spent two hours thinking about how I had missed something along the way. I couldn’t stop thinking about how overwhelming it felt.
This got me thinking about all the plot holes I could find and took me out of the movie.
I felt horrible for myself.
Now, back to my first paragraph – where I said it was for my grandmother. I say that because I called my 89 year old aunt who saw it and she raved about how charming it was and how cute it just was. She loved it. When I expressed my feelings, she commented that us “younger people” “think too much” about a movie.
Maybe. She asked me for a final thought and all I could think was, well, if they’re post office employees, where were their uniforms?
Rating: 3 out of 5.
OTHER THOUGHTS
- I really believe they are such a small team for a big city. I try to find out where old letters go.
- I love the adoption storyline, I just felt like it was rushed and we should have taken a little more time to really dive into it.
- I think these movies would be better as a TV show
- While I understand the reasoning behind calling this a mystery, I don’t really think of it that way. I get the whole figuring out where the letter should have been, but I also can’t get over the TV show vibe
- The old house irritated me – because it was so stiff. How does that ever feel like home?
- There isn’t a single character in this film that didn’t feel stiff at times
- Charlie blamed herself for a lot of things, but I don’t think everything was her fault.
- To be honest, I don’t want anyone to come before me and think I’m trashing the actors. I’m not. They were good. The script was stiff and overwhelming. It was just too much for such a short time.
What did you think of the movie? Tell us all!
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