Hallmark Channel
‘Spring into Love’ continues on Hallmark Channel, but A Season to Blossom definitely has an Autumnal vibe to it. Perhaps it’s the storyline about apples and cider-making, perhaps its the cast wearing layers of clothing in outdoor scenes, perhaps it’s the piles of dead leaves around the trees in the apple orchard. Nothing in this movie screams ‘Spring’ until the very end when the lead character, Elise, finally puts on a cute, brightly colored dress.
Emily Tennant stars as Elise, a young woman known to be a drifter, not having found her place to settle. Elise had set herself a goal of five years to sit down and write her romance novel, but that time has come and gone and she seems upset that everyone in the world is reading another new romance novel (it’s revealed later why Elise is all up in her feels about that book). On the last day of her temp job with a company in Chicago, she is offered a full-time position because she’s so good at what she does … but she had no plans to put down roots in the Windy City, however, her phone keeps reminding her that it’s time to finish her novel of which she has only written one chapter. So feeling that continuing to drift isn’t going to get her book written, she accepts the position but she will need about a month to herself as she needs to return to her hometown of, wait for it, Driftless to complete the sale of her late Gram’s beloved bookstore. Perfect, because the job doesn’t actually start for four weeks.
When Elise arrives in Driftless, she encounters some of the locals she used to know well, including flower shop owner Winnie Kane, and the son of the apple orchard owner, Max Whitman, who is busy trying to expand the business with a line of apple cider products. Their interaction is awkward at first, but Max quickly makes himself available to help Elise fill the planters at the bookstore with new flowers, just like Gram liked them, and then feels that he may need her help as well, coming up with some catchy stories to go with each flavor of his apple cider, which he is in the process of presenting to a vendor. Elise also meets bookstore employee Molly, and the store’s new resident stray cat that Elise does not want to get attached to but who seems to be supernaturally attached to her. She eventually names the cat Clover and even buys a cat tree for it to hang out in at the store. I’d like to think the cat is Gram watching over Elise, guiding her, but Gram was feeding it before she passed … but it still seems to be keeping a close watch on things. Elise finds herself getting more deeply involved with the town than she planned, although she wants to uphold all of Gram’s obligations related to the upcoming Apple Blossom Festival before the store is sold. When she learns the only offer for the space is a conglomerate that wants to gut the place and turn it into condos, Elise begins to feel some pangs of guilt because the store means so much to her and the town, so she asks the realtor to hold off on a sale until after the festival. Elise also begins to feel that her relationship with Max, on whom she had a crush in high school, is developing nicely but she still plans to return to her new job. However, as all of the events at the bookstore turn into massive hits, the thought of selling the place becomes more difficult. She also begins to enjoy working closely with Max on promoting the cider, and at one point she thinks their relationship has advanced to the kissing stage … but he gives her an awkward hug instead. Okay, maybe returning to Chicago is the best plan after all. But there are no other offers for the bookstore, and she doesn’t want to erase her Gram’s legacy. Plus she’s having fun playing matchmaker for Winnie and Max’s dad Earl (who are the only people in town who don’t realize there is a spark between them). Everything comes to a head right before the festival as a huge storm blows through, putting the blossoms in danger. If the wind and rain knocks them down, there will be no festival … or apples. On top of that potential catastrophe, a valve has blown on the cider tank that needs to be repaired ASAP or the batch is ruined, and the only place Max can get a new one is two hours away, meaning he will either have to shelter in place there or risk heading back to Driftless in the storm. Unfortunately the blossoms are destroyed and the festival is cancelled, and Elise does not know where she stands with Max. Can the event, and the relationship, still be salvaged, will Elise go through with the sale of the store, will Clover become homeless again, and will Earl and Winnie finally admit they’ve been in their own feels about each other for quite some time? And will Gram continue to haunt Elise, who keeps finding little ‘Easter eggs’ the woman has scattered about, as well as with her words of wisdom written down in a journal Elise refers to that helps bring everything into focus?
Hallmark Channel
A Season to Blossom is another aggressively pleasant Hallmark Channel romance, this one simply following the usual template of a woman returning home, bumping into an old flame, finding there is still something simmering between them (a low simmer at that), falling into some kind of disagreement right as things are about to hit the boiling point, and everything being resolved for the expected kiss at the end. We’ve seen this story many times before, just in different settings and with different reasons for the woman to make her way back home. This one also struck me as another Hallmark movie with the presence of a dead grandmother influencing the heroine’s actions, after An Alpine Holiday, Haul Out the Halloween and Joyful Mrs. Miracle. It’s beginning to feel like Disney’s ‘dead father’ movies. The fact that the story follows the stereotypical Hallmark template could come down to it being writer Jennifer Wolfgram’s first major project as a solo writer. There isn’t anything bad about the script, it just feels too familiar, bringing nothing new to the standard formula. Hallmark veteran Terry Ingram, whose credits include the popular Three Wise Men series of film, does what he can to keep the story flowing but no one seems to be trying to make us think this movie actually takes place in Spring, with production apparently hampered by days of rain that wasn’t part of the story, just making the whole endeavor feel chilly and Fall-like. Aside from everything else, one major question I have is why do Elise and Winnie wear so much make-up?! Elise is often in full nighttime drag in the middle of the day (or first thing in the morning!) with her bright red lipstick and way too heavily rouged cheeks. Tone it down, gurl.
The cast, while also pleasant, try hard to ignite some sparks. Emily Tennant has the hard job of trying to make Elise feel conflicted about the bookstore and her new job, insisting she is leaving Driftless in a month but is quickly involved with the town to the point it seems she’s almost completely forgotten about said job (and did she call her boss to tell him she wasn’t coming back?). Her chemistry with Carlo Marks, as Max, also feels more in the friend zone — or worse, like a sister — than a long-dormant romance, which could be attributed to Max being written in such a way that he’s only focused on his cider and sees Elise as a colleague, even when he’s supposed to be having romantic pangs when he looks at her from afar. Watching the movie, we as the audience know these two are going to get together because they have a history, but we also have to wonder … should they get together? It was hard to find a spark between them to really heat this thing up.
Hallmark Channel
EaeMya Thyngi does bring some joy to her role as bookstore employee Molly, apparently the one and only person who has been running the place since Elise’s Gram died. She offers some nice support to Elise, often has some words of wisdom or knowledge of things to help Elise get through the situation, and she gets her own little subplot about being an amazing baker. Laura Soltis also brings some fun to her role of Winnie, taking charge of the festival planning, offering Elise support, and doing some subtle flirting with Earl. Mark Humphrey, in turn, plays Earl very well, a focused businessman (although he has a narrow vision of what the orchard should be, conflicting with his son’s dreams of expanding their services), and able to flirt with Winnie without even realizing he’s flirting. He gets a really nice moment during a poetry reading at the bookstore where he gets to publicly reveal his feelings for Winnie that actually is joyfully emotional. He and Soltis play the moment very well, and they also play the humor in each trying to figure out how to put themselves together for a date, Elise and Molly helping Winnie, Max helping Earl.
In the end, devoted Hallmark Channel fans will probably find nothing here to complain about as A Season to Blossom is exactly what they’d expect, and it delivers on almost every count. But after seeing so many of these movies that do follow the same template, others may feel it is just too familiar and lacking of anything that makes it special. The highest praise one could give is that it does exactly what you would expect it to do … but is that always a good thing?
A Season to Blossom has a run time of 1 hour 24 minutes, is rated TV-G, and is streaming on Hallmark+.
Preview | A Season to Blossom
Hallmark Channel