One Summer

This appeared on Hallmark Movies and Mysteries which when not doing mysteries shows movies with a different flavor than the Hallmark Channel. This movie fits that mold. It is actually quite different than most of the rom/coms we're used to because the romance is secondary to the rest of the story.

This movie is about grief, and family, and starting over. As Amanda Schull points out in an interview, this movie focuses on the man rather than the woman. His backstory is a bit unusual and possibly even a bit strange. Sam Page is excellent in that role.

Sarah Drew is also good, but I would have liked to have seen more of her.

The climax simultaneously goes off the scale with sappy and with stupid (in the sense of unrealistic). Yes I know, and I've even said, that Hallmark and realistic don't always go well together, but this movie takes the cake. But I love sappy, so I was willing to forgive for the extreme poetic license.

I know Madeline Grace Popovich can sing. She was second best in The Christmas High Note, but still pretty good. When she does her feature performance in this movie, it sounds like they switched to a voice over, but I'm assuming it was her and not someone else. The song is quite good.