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This was a week for literary adaptations and Evan Roderick sightings, first over on Lifetime with its adaptation of Terri Blackstock’s If I Run (the first of three stories though not airing over consecutive weeks), and on Hallmark Channel with the first of a three-part adaptation of Jude Deveraux’s Providence Falls novel series … which bears more than a passing resemblance to the beloved Outlander series on Starz.
The first film based on the first novel, Providence Falls: Chance of a Lifetime, is saddled with doing a lot of work to set up the premise, even more difficult with its time-hopping storyline and cross-generational characters (who, luckily, all have the same names in the past and present — some things just stick with you, we’re told — making it a little easier to follow their stories), but it does a good job at setting up the present through the situations of the past. To make it a little easier to follow, we’ll lay out the plot in chronological order (as much as we can):
The story’s foundation is laid in 1844 Ireland, where thieves Liam (Lachlan Quarmby) and Boyd (Matty Finochio) have targeted an estate they believe to be empty, apparently searching for a particular necklace … that just happens to be around the neck of its owner, Cora (Katie Steven). Taken with the thief, and the thief taken with her, the two begin a secret relationship — she is to be married in short order to a man named Finn (Evan Roderick) — but the authorities catch up to Liam and he must go on the run … and Cora declares she is going with him. Unfortunately during the chase, she stumbles and falls backwards into a chasm, dying in Liam’s arms. Suddenly Liam finds himself in a very white room, greeted by a woman named Samael (Keegan Connor Tracy) and her over-enthusiastic assistant Agon (Amitai Marmorstein), who inform Liam he has been in limbo for 200 years, and now he is tasked with righting a wrong of the past, namely that he took Cora from her destined love Finn, and now he has to bring their reincarnated souls back together in the present, and Agon will always be nearby to offer assistance or warnings if Liam begins to go off book.
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Plopped down into the present day, Liam is the only one of the reincarnates who retains all of his memories … and zero knowledge of the present, making him unfamiliar with things like cell phones, cars, and women with careers. He’s also surprised to find that he is a police officer with particular skills of deduction and he also is surprised to learn his commanding officer is Boyd (not that Boyd knows this … and it’s never explained how Liam suddenly appears and Boyd acts like he’s been on the force for years), and that he is going to be partnered with a newly minted detective on a larceny case. That detective is Cora McCleod, who doesn’t want a partner because she has a hard enough time earning the respect of her colleagues who just see her as a nepo baby riding her father’s coattails. But she seems to feel a certain familiarity with Liam that she can’t put a finger on. Also involved in the case is the DA, Finn (Evan Roderick), who may have a little bit of a thing for Cora that her friend Suzette can see while Cora does what she can to ignore it, especially now that Liam has also given her heart a bit of a flutter. As the pair work the larceny case, Liam also runs into a woman named Merideth with whom he’d been involved with in his past life (even though she was married but assumed they were going to run off together), and begins to see a pattern in the present that is a direct reflection of their pasts — namely one in which Merideth’s husband is murdered (Liam discovered the body during a robbery and the maid saw Liam standing over the body, which is what forced him to run from the police). Fearing the same thing was about to happen, Liam ditches Cora at the policeman’s ball (she thought they were about to have a romantic dance) and take Merideth to the middle of nowhere to look at the stars until the sun comes up, hoping to save John Brady’s life (he also called in a tip about a suspicious person seen around the Brady’s home, but that tip led right back to Liam making him the prime suspect again). Leaving the ball actually gave Cora and Finn a chance to connect, but after Liam became a suspect in a murder it seemed things were on the right track. But with Liam getting exonerated, Cora begins to feel that maybe there is something between them after all. Will Liam continue to complicate the future as he did the past, or will Cora eventually end up with her soulmate Finn? Or, will they discover that perhaps a clerical error in the angels’ paperwork put her with Finn when she was truly destined to be with Liam? Stay tuned.
Providence Falls: Chance of a Lifetime has a completely different feel from most of Hallmark’s output with its era-spanning storyline and settings, lush production design and costumes, a very cinematic look, and a cast of actors you don’t see in every third Hallmark movie (except for Roderick, who has had a recurring role on Hallmark Mystery’s Aurora Teagarden Mysteries series of films). For fans of these types of time-traveling romances, such as the aforementioned Outlander, Providence Falls really delivers on setting up the story of the star-crossed lovers, genuinely making you wonder who exactly Cora will wind up with in the end, while neatly wrapping up the larceny case, which was connected to Brady’s murder. Director Lucie Guest does a great job of putting all the pieces of the puzzle together without allowing it to become too convoluted and just casually sidestepping any of the plot holes that may distract from the story, especially that big one of Liam’s existence in the present (it’s explained that everyone else involved in the story was reincarnated but him, so his suddenly materializing but being addressed as if he’d always been there is a head-scratcher.
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The cast is uniformly good, especially as they have to juggle two different characters, albeit with the same name (and some of them have to juggle Irish accents as well. Katie Stevens, know for her role on The Bold Type, does a great job at showing her feelings for Liam in the past, while struggling with those feelings in the present, not sure why she suddenly has these feelings for someone she just met. She has to be the hard-nosed cop battling a sexist system, working harder than any man to do her job simply to earn some respect, while still allowing herself to have a softer side without becoming too vulnerable when it comes to both Liam and Finn. Lachlan Quarmby gets to play Liam a bit more light-hearted, the fish out of water in the present, armed with the knowledge of the past while grappling with his feeling for Cora in the present while trying to prevent the past from repeating itself, fearful that now that Brady has died — again — it’s only a matter of time before Cora’s fate catches up with her. Evan Roderick doesn’t figure too much into the story yet, with his Finn character popping in and out to be a distraction to Cora, but as the story goes on the friction between him and Liam is sure to grow. Felicia Simone is a delight as Suzette, always ready to spill some tea and put Cora in uncomfortable situations while doing a little matchmaking (it’s not clear yet if she has a counterpart in the past). Lending some good support are Matty Finochio as Boyd and Paul McGillion as Cora’s father, James.
Keegan Connor Tracy makes for a wonderful angelic administrator as Samael, concise and stern with her direction as to what Liam must do to right the wrong he committed in the past, but leaving us wondering if she is as perfect as she believes she is. Adding some comic relief is Amitai Marmorstein as angel Agon, having a ball in the modern world playing dress up as a cop and always within Liam’s sightline to guide him in the right direction with Cora … which Liam gleefully ignores, leading to much frustration and Agon. Jessica Sipos also turns in a good performance as Merideth, both in the past and present where she is entangled with Liam. All in all, a great cast that carries the story and makes it all gripping and enthralling.
While Providence Falls: Chance of a Lifetime does wrap up the central larceny case that Cora and Liam are working on, and seems to push Cora closer to Finn, it has to leave the door open at the end for Cora to decide maybe there is something to explore with Liam, and that will continue with the next chapter.
Providence Falls: Chance of a Lifetime has a run time of 1 hour 24 minutes, and is rated TV-G. The film is streaming on Hallmark+.
Preview – Providence Falls: Chance of a Lifetime
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