Listen I wouldn't hold the same yardstick to a Hallmark food/chef/bakery/cooking movie as I would to an actual movie starring Zeta Jones or some other attempt at an A list blockbuster hit. I know they're all cookie cutter. But what are the chances I just saw another food truck competition movie a couple of weeks ago and they were both equally chintzy. Skip to my lou to the market to get some flowers and a baguette and then sit pretty on the food prep counter of your food truck to talk to people outside. Newflash no pro kitchen people do that. Another movie with props. The last one I saw was some bakery movie, and like they dropped a pretty face into a bakery kitchen and then went through a restaurant equipment catalog and clicked 'purchase' and then just dumped them all shiny and new into the kitchen and said ok that's all we need to make a kitchen movie look authentic.
Listen, if you ignore the fact that the whole food and cooking scene was completely fake as per usual Hallmark standards (you know, pretty girl who puts on a white jacket and pretends to be a chef), it was another run of the mill romance. If you dont care that she would just stroll through the market and help herself to stuff without paying, or that she goes on about having people lined up every single day for the past 5 years she's been running the truck, and yet every time you see her inside her truck there is either not a single customer, or the times she had a lineup and orders piled up, she just stood there with her 2 cohorts gawking out the window at her love interest bacon dude. Ok not to mention I mean for the sake of the story they want to highlight her tension with his truck, she's never made a single mention of any other trucks in the area- the truck is parked in a busy plaza but bacon dude is the only other truck you ever see. Until they go out for dinner one night, then she seems to know everyone's name.
If you dont mind the fact that there's a HUGE plot hole, the story of why her granmpa's grocery store/market that she helped out at when she was tiny is now for lease, and yet somehow near the end of the movie, we have zero details of that backstory, did he die, why is it closed up, why does she not have a clue who owns the place now? She said she was born and raised Portland and never left. It's not like she left like in so many Hallmark movies, you know, born in some small village, leaves for big city, comes back and takes over family business etc etc. This bothered me that there was zero info on this. You went from ringing the bell on the counter when you were a preteen at your grampa's grocery store, fast forward zero life story, between then and now running a food truck for 5 years, mysteriously. No culinary school. Which is fine. Not everyone has to go to culinary school. But dear Hallmark writers. You can't just make up backstory stuff and drop it in but not explain it. The dots do have to connect. Even for a cheapo Hallmark movie.
If you're not bothered by the fact that she's been 'killing it' in the food truck scene for the past 5 years in a city that everyone knows is a giant food truck scene, she would have known all about social media presence, and not played dumb with her niece. Newflash all food truck owners know thats the only way to promote themselves.
The last major loophole is how her thing seems to be 'cooking with love' and goes on about fresh veggies etc, so head to her house and she's transplanting a mature tree in full bloom. For one thing, you don't transplant mature trees that are in full bloom, they would never survive. Not a huge deal if you are a generic Hallmark viewer and don't pay attention to these details, and/or not a gardener. Right so not a big deal. But the blatant lack of vegetables in every single one of her raised beds? she went on about planting veggies to donate to the homeless shelter? All she had were roses and tulips or daffodils. So that was kinda stupid.
And finally, also a detail that one notices if one is into cooking or produce, but not enornous flaw. Persimmons aren't in season in May. They are ready in the fall. Again, minor detail if you don't care about those details or you don't know anything about produce and so this wouldn't bother you. It bothers me even so with Hallmark movies when the writers sitting at their boardroom table go oh hey we should drop this item into the plot for a little side story. But let's not bother research first and make sure it's actually plausible. Not glaring error, but bigger than say hey the movie was set in 1945 and yet the car the dude was driving didn't come out until a year later. I mean I wouldn't even point out that stuff for a Hallmark movie. Because it's Hallmark. But at least assume that your audience probably has some basic understanding about gardening. Or don't just make sh up to suit your story.
Anyway, 2 sub par food truck movies in 2 weeks. What are the odds? Glad this was filmed before the pandemic. For that matter I hope Hallmark doesn't try to shoot any movies during the pandemic. Cause you know how that would go.
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