Hallmark Channel
Hallmark Channel’s second Hearts Around the Table has premiered and after the first laid the ground work for the three that were to follow, this second film lays even more groundwork for the next two films while offering a very confusing point in this franchise’s timeline.
Hearts Around the Table: Shari’s Second Act begins with the foster family sister Shari returning home to DC after the end of her marriage to a diplomat. Shari, an artist, has been approved for an apartment in an artists’ co-op and she is able to begin moving in the day after her arrival. Her siblings — Jenna, Josh and Kiki — play a prank on her, making her think that they all forgot she was flying in that day but surprised her outside the airport terminal. The next day, Shari goes to the coop to get her paperwork in order and meets who she believes is the handyman, Evan, who helps with a light that’s shorted out and blown a fuse (using a fuse box panel that appears to have no breaker switches). The two exchange pleasantries and glances and Evan insists to portrait artist Shari that he is not a model … even though he totally is a model. Just look at the guy! The two hit it off as friends, but Shari begins to feel that there may be more to it, especially when he invites her to go antiquing with him (a total ‘couples thing’ in her mind), and she isn’t ready to jump into another relationship so soon after the end of her last one. But Shari gets drawn in further when Evan reveals his antiquing has a purpose: he’s looking for furniture and objects for the gallery he’s building in the lobby of the co-op, but more importantly he’s looking for paintings that his grandmother had done, which she had to sell in order to make ends meet. She has nothing to show for all of her work, and she’s quit painting to run her own coffee shop in town (which also caters to artists). But Shari and Evan keep falling more for each other and then put up walls that puts their entire relationship in jeopardy, especially when Evan gets a job offer on the other side of the country in San Francisco.
That’s the main part of the story. The movie also ignores Jenna and Andrew from the first movie (although Jenna is present to offer Shari advice), and sets up a story for Josh helping one of his students who is struggling with his track and field performance, as well as Kiki’s story in which she has to decided whether to go to the memorial service for her first foster mother in Florida.
As with the first movie, Hearts Around the Table: Shari’s Second Act gives Mindy Cohn some really nice moments to offer motherly support to her ‘hearts’, this time with Shari’s own affairs of the heart. Interestingly, Mishael Morgan brings an entirely different energy to Shari than she did in the first movie (which is part of this film’s confusion). Here she is grounded but unsure of herself following the failure of her marriage. She loves to paint, but she’s lost that spark because of her heartbreak and finds it again thanks to Evan. Morgan makes Shari much more sympathetic here where she was judgmental and overbearing in the first movie, always having a negative reaction to Jenna’s relationship with Andrew. Perhaps it’s due to having a different writer (though the same director), but it’s a bit jarring to have this shift in Shari’s character, whereas all of the returning cast from the first film are basically the same as they were by the end of that movie. Even Rory is more open and adjusted and has fit into the family. Brendan Morgan does a nice job with Evan, peeling back the layers of the character who is more than just the building’s handyman (he’s the owner, actually). He makes the relationship with Shari feel authentic, good friends who begin to develop romantic feelings. He totally plays up the friend vibe but it’s clear he is falling for Shari (although the script gives him a rather abrupt and unexplained turnabout when he basically ghosts Shari after a night of painting and wine at the coffee shop seemed to go very well). He and Morgan have good chemistry and the viewers want to see them admit their feelings, and that is of the most importance in a Hallmark romance.
Hallmark Channel
The film is directed by Marco Deufemia, who directed the first, so it has the same vibe. It would be even more jarring if there was an inconsistent tone, but there is some inconsistency here and that is in the story by Neale Kimmel. In Jenna’s First Love, Shari was there, she was a presence, there was no mention (that I can remember) of her being married and living in Europe. In this movie, everyone acts like they haven’t seen Shari for some time so, for a while, we’re left to wonder exactly when this movie is taking place. Is it actually a prequel to the first movie? That seems logical because Andrew isn’t in this movie … but Jenna does mention him later and talks to him on the phone. So it has to take place after the first movie … but how long after? The whole plot line of Shari just moving back to DC makes no sense in the story’s continuity. A better way to make this work would have just had Shari reveal to the family at their weekly Sunday dinner that she was officially divorced (making her ex a diplomat really served no purpose to the story), they were selling their house and she was moving into the artists co-op. And then this could have been set up in the first movie with Shari mentioning to Jenna or Kiki or Angie that her relationship was on the rocks. As it is, it makes no sense now that she was there in the first movie, always giving Andrew a hard time. Having her deal with her own relationship in the first movie would have helped explain why she was being so protective of Jenna instead of just coming off as judgmental and mean-spirited. Not including Andrew in the story also makes thing confusing with the timeline of the story because if it had been a prequel, Rory would have been more reserved (or perhaps not in the movie at all). The writing does succeed in making Shari a more sympathetic character, one that the viewers can root for to make the romance work but the whole set-up just doesn’t make any sense. It will be interesting to see how the third movie works with the same writer as the first, Paula Tiberius (but a different director), while the last movie reunites the writer and director from this one. Will there be a consistent storyline moving forward?
As it is, Hearts Around the Table: Shari’s Second Act, is about as pleasant as the first movie but nothing earth-shattering. The inconsistent storyline is a detriment, but the performances help make it work (even if everyone seems to have amnesia about the events of the first movie). The set-ups for the third and fourth movies’ storylines are interesting but now we’re left to wonder if they will actually play out as presented. It’s interesting that someone at Hallmark has created this ‘Hearts’ universe with all (or most) of the actors appearing in all of the movies, they just needed someone to oversee the entire project to make sure it all made sense.
Hearts Around the Table: Shari’s Second Act has a run time of 1 hour 24 minutes, and is rated TV-G. The film is streaming on Hallmark+.
Preview – Hearts Around the Table: Shari’s Second Act
Hallmark Channel