I totally get that Hallmark Movies & Mysteries is something completely different than The Hallmark Channel. I truly do. What I am going to say could be slightly controversial – Hallmark Movies & Mysteries needs to update their movies and make them less for my 80 year old Grandma who is looking for something wholesome to watch after she completes her Wheel of Fortune nightly binge.
If there is one thing I am, it’s blunt. Sometimes that works against me, I know. But I am going to say this, it’s not that this movie is bad (it’s not), it’s just that it’s level of cheese is so high that it gave me second hand embarrassment sometimes.
While, I will be the first to admit, I am not one that likes anything having to do with lost mail (you know how many pieces of mail that you’ve lost over the years Post Office), I do like the premise of the movie. Reuniting lost letters where they are supposed to go. However, part of me watches a movie like this and wonders if that’s always such a good idea.
One thing that Hallmark always does well is that they know the human heart. They understand that what people are searching for in their movies is a sense of hope. We want to escape our lives, to feel like there is something out there that understands what we want. And what is that? To be loved.
Signed, Sealed, Delivered: A Tale Of Three Letters does accomplish just that. It shows us several people in different types of relationships that they hope that 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 such innocence and joy that you know they are doing everything to give you that hope.
So where does it fail? There is just too much going on in the movie. While it examines lost letters and everything that they bring and ties that all together in a package, it doesn’t do enough to dive into the relationships. It feels like it should have been a series, with the Postables having a different letter each episode, but examining one couple or one issue at a time.
With so many things that have happened in their lives – both couples and Charlie – shoving it into a two hour movie felt wrong. It felt overwhelming and out of control at times. It’s because of these moments that watching it, sometimes I couldn’t help but cringe.
I couldn’t help but cringe at each characters obliviousness to what others were feeling. They didn’t realize what others were going through. Instead, each shoved their agenda on the others. While, yes, it does work out in the end, I couldn’t cheer for the happy endings. Why? Because I had spent two hours thinking about how I missed something somewhere along the way. I couldn’t stop thinking about how it felt overwhelming.
This lead me to thinking about all the plot holes that I could find and took me out of the movie.
I hated that for myself.
Now, back to my first paragraph – where I did say it was for my Grandma. I say that because I did call my 89 year old Aunt who watched it and she gushed about how charming it was and how it was just so cute. She did love it. When I expressed my feelings, she remarked about how us “younger folks” put “too much thought” into a movie.
Maybe we do. She asked me for a final thought and all I could think was, well, if they are employees of the Post Office where were their uniforms?
OTHER THOUGHTS
- I am really stuck on their being such a small team for a big city trying to figure out where old letters do go
- I do love the adoption storyline. I just felt it was rushed and that we should have taken a beat to really dive in
- I think that these movies would be better as a TV show
- While I do get the reasoning for calling this a mystery, I don’t really think of it like that. I get the whole figuring out where the letter was meant to be, but also, I can’t get over the TV show feel
- The old house annoyed me – because it was so stiff. Like how does that ever feel like a home
- There isn’t a character in this movie that didn’t feel stiff at times
- Charlie blamed herself for a lot, but I don’t think everything was her fault.
- Honestly, I don’t want anyone to come for me and think I am putting down the actors. I am not. They were good. It’s the script that was stiff and overwhelming. It was just too much for such a short amount of time.
What did you think of the movie? Tell us all the things!
