Love in Translation

I really loved this one! I particularly liked Michelle Argyris, a fresh new face. She was darling and had excellent acting and comedic skills. Corey Sevier was fine as usual and played a nerdy (but not too nerdy) clueless academic. Very cute.

A very highly qualified and educated girl wants to fulfill her dream of working at a museum, a career path that is reserved for the best of the best in the field. In order to get her foot in the door, she gets a job helping the influential museum archeologist with his language skills. Corey has sensed that his French girlfriend is pulling away from him and realizes that speaking her language will increase the romance quotient in their relationship. Language is our girl's specialty and she speaks about a dozen languages not including dead ones. Unfortunately she gets very discombobulated and awkward around any guy that she thinks is cute and attractive, which Corey definitely is. It is no spoiler to assure you that in addition to getting the guy in the end, she also scores the position of her dreams due to her ability to decipher an ancient inscription that results in a gigantic financial coup for the museum.

This one avoids the usual bone tired Hallmark set pieces. OH. I see that it is not a Hallmark. No wonder. Another plus is the actress that plays our heroine's sister. Her performance is very entertaining and comedic.

I've seen a lot of cheesy romantic movies and this one is bottom of the barrel. The ludicrous overacting by the female lead is distracting. I would have guessed she jumped straight from her high school stage onto this movie set, except that I've seen high schoolers who can act massively better than her. Add in cheap costumes and sets and you get an altogether worthless movie.

The lack of chemistry between Michelle Argyris and Corey Sevier was distracting. It didn't help that Dan was being a jerk through at least 40 minutes (commercial run time) of the movie but once that passed, that was no longer the issue as far as chemistry. From then on I was amazed at the lack of emotional connection between the two. I never did like Dan.

The story wasn't completely derivative, but it wasn't that great either. There were no great highs or lows or surprises and there was barely any moment of conflict.

There is one pivotal event late in the move which was pretty stupid and yet from that point on it received constant attention. The more attention it received, the more ridiculous was it's believability, but then anyone who watches many of these movies knows that reality is often abandoned.

Cosette, the girl actually from France, had a fake sounding accent, but to my ear, when Julie spoke in French her accent was very good. Argyris sounded exactly as Julie was meant to be - an American with excellent training in languages.

This show is goofier than I expected and packed with gags. It does have the usual TV movie format, but that is buried underneath the quirky characters and unexpected situations. The cafe really feels like that of Friends/Frasier etc or the Cheers bar, with random people getting involved in the scene, which is one of many factors that give a sit-com vibe. The language learning / teaching is not entirely realistic, but not annoying enough for me to drop a star because they really have gone the extra mile to make this movie less run-of-the-mill. The characters don't always make the best choice, but they are all good-hearted, so nothing nasty happens.

About many Hallmark films I say nice. As a fair compromise about a genre not brilliant but comfortable . In this case, silly sounds more than reasonable. Not for film itself but for many scenes. The dialogue is the best example. So, a film with Corey Sevier, saved by French language, unrealistic at whole but acceptable. So, silly puzzle, not so bad use of classic recipe - the parents of Daniel are the basic explanation.