'Love on Harbor Island' Review: Hallmark cheese-fest is cut out for dreamy romantics craving for happy endings
Trust Hallmark to make staying at home all day bearable by promoting the message of how the home really is where the heart is in times as dark and dreary as these. But sometimes these giant dollops of cheesiness can be a little too far from reality as well. They say everything is fair in love and war, but there's no mention of the plush convenience that characters in Hallmark's stories constantly flourish under. For those that lose jobs, there's lavish country homes, holiday inns and more waiting back in their quaint little hometown. And that's not all. There's also a rugged hunk waiting for our Hallmark ladies back home, for whom they can easily dump their city boyfriends. And like most Hallmark movies, such seems to be the predictable love story of 'Love on Harbor Island' - Lily and Marcus and how they met in the marina.
The story sees Seattle-based interior designer, Lily Summers (Morgan Kohan) return to her hometown to help her Aunt Maggie (Brenda Matthews) run her bed and breakfast by the marina. That's when she meets Marcus (Marcus Rosner), the handsome seaplane pilot "whose life’s work delivering rescue dogs helps Lily discover that home really is where the heart is," reveals the official synopsis about a plot that seems to be a go-to for the channel and its audiences.
Lily has an attractive beau back in the city, but just can't seem to make the necessary cut at her affluent job. The mid-life crisis-esque self-reflection is conveniently timed with her aunt falling down back home. So she takes time off to go nurse the older woman back to health, and upon learning of the Inn's failing status, agrees to stay longer to renovate it for a proper open house. She can take time off work she says so perhaps the issue with her job really is Lily herself. But that's another story.
Lily is flown to the town in a chartered plane piloted by Marcus, whose rescue pup keeps raising ample segues for the couple-to-be to keep chancing upon each other. Of course, Marcus also does chores around the Inn so the access to him is easier and more frequent than Lily's city boyfriend would approve of. The inevitable happens and witty repertoire turns into camaraderie and more towards the end of the 80-minute long plot. Helmed by director Lucie Guest, the film is dealt well and executed as far as shallow love stories with minor inconveniences go. The problem so much with Guest's direction or the script from Andrea Shawcross that she bases her film on.
Kohan, an actress best known for 'When Hope Calls' (2019), 'Ransom' (2017), and 'Star Trek: Discovery' (2017) is a fitting choice for Lily too, even though grossly underutilized. Rosner is promising and insanely attractive - sort of blinding his work as an actor in the plot. Matthews is heartwarming as older, grandma type figures go. Ensemble wise, things come together, but for a very, very precisely cut off demographic that believes in love stories like religion. The rest of the cast also includes Emma Cam as Jeff Gonek, Shawn Ahmed as Dan, Mark Brandon as Mr Hartwell, Lexie Huber as Mrs Hartwell, Brendan Taylor as Angus, Tiffani Timms as Mom and Lucia Walters as Beatrice. And all of them work their best in the fun, frolicky, happy-go-lucky plot that could have just not been brought to the screen, but on somedays perhaps sh*tting on movies like this are the only respite and that would explain why this exists.
'Love on Harbor Island' premieres on Saturday, August 8, at 9 pm/8 pm c only on Hallmark.