'It Was Always You' Review: This beautiful Hallmark romance shows love finds a way when you least expect it
It's ironic that a dentist would choose to marry a man who sets her teeth on edge, but that's exactly the situation we find Elizabeth in at the start of 'It Was Always You'. Elizabeth is all set to marry fellow dentist Dr George Belling with whom she has a thriving dental practice. There is also shared history between the two as Elizabeth was the girl next door growing up on their small island town.
However while all this seems to make for a good match on paper, like one of the endless lists that Elizabeth is always drawing up, there seems to be only logic and not love that drives this relationship.
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Elizabeth is played by Hallmark regular Erin Krakow. We have to say though, for someone whose character is supposed to be very organized, Krakow wanders around with a permanently bewildered expression through the majority of her performance. She only seems to come to life in her scenes with Tyler Hynes who plays David, George's free-spirited brother. Considering the film is about David and Elizabeth falling in love, we suppose that's somewhat appropriate.
The romance between David and Elizabeth begins to blossom when David returns home from his adventures across the world, this time teaching children in Mumbai. He is here to attend Elizabeth and David's engagement party. However, in the run-up to the engagement party, George gets stuck on the other side of town for a few days due to terrible weather. In George's absence, Elizabeth starts to spend more time with David, who she has known since childhood. This is when she begins to question her life choices. George is somehow portrayed as the reason Elizabeth never pursued her dreams of travel. But we're left wondering why a grown woman who is clearly doing well professionally couldn't just hop on a plane by herself?
But other than David reminding her that the world is her oyster, he also takes her out to an oyster bar, something which George would never do because he refuses to be adventurous with both travel and food. David and Elizabeth also go dancing and sit on a comfortable couch, eating popcorn and watching silly dating shows. Essentially the standard montage of what we see couples in romantic comedies do. No prizes for guessing that by the time George makes it back, David and Elizabeth have already formed a bond. Elizabeth tries to see if she can recreate the same 'zing' she has with George, but it is futile. George tells her that they can maybe go traveling one day when they are very old and very gray ( who says that?), and when Elizabeth tries to slow dance with him he looks like he's having a tooth extracted.
So it's of little surprise that when Elizabeth tells him it is not working out, he takes it remarkably well, probably also because he has been having some flirty moments of his own with his assistant Denise. Cut to a year later and Elizabeth is sending postcards to George and David's mother and sister from Italy, France and England. We then see her flying back home with a beret, just to drive home the point that she's now well-traveled, to attend George and David's sister Louise's engagement party.
At the party she obviously meets David again. David then shows her a note that he wrote as a 13-year-old. It shows that he's been in love with her since then. Elizabeth, who had to resort to getting her dose of romance from dating shows, now gets all the romance she has been dreaming of from David. 'It Was Always You' then ends with a slow dance and a kiss.
We have to say that the music for the film has been well chosen and will no doubt warm your heart with some nostalgia. The best supporting cast for 'It Was Always You' is the beautiful locale that it is shot in. So if you're in the mood for a film that is easy on the eyes and ears and not too tough on the brain, 'It Was Always You' may be what you're looking for.
