Hallmark delivers seasonal romance in When Love Springs, a movie set at an idyllic B&B nestled in the greenest scenery we’ve seen on the network this year. Rhiannon Fish and James O’Halloran star in an out-of-season fake relationship romance movie, proving that people need fake boyfriends all year long and not just during the holidays. But is When Love Springs the real deal or is this film more of a forgettable fling?
The Gist: Rhiannon Fish (a standout in March’s A Picture of Her) plays Rory, an overworked junior publicist who’s managed to squeeze in a few days away from New York City to attend her parents’ renewal of their vows at the bed and breakfast where they first met. But just because she’s away from NYC doesn’t mean she’s away from work. This is also a working trip for her! And that’s gonna be hard for Rory, because Lily Lake is the quaintest of quaint B&Bs. That means there is no Wi-Fi, no business center — and even if she wanted to actually enjoy a vacation, there are also no pool or TVs either. Who’s running this place?!
That would be Noah (James O’Halloran), the grandson of Lily Lake’s original owner. Noah’s not really the owner, though; he’s just looking after the place while his dad’s away. But suddenly his easy gig of checking in guests and mowing the lawn becomes incredibly stressful when he learns that a major travel critic is dropping in a week early. Surprise!
And somehow that’s not the only surprise at Lily Lake this weekend. Rory’s ex Jason (Callan Colley) just so happens to be at the B&B with his new girlfriend. To save herself from some embarrassment, Rory latches onto Noah and the two become a “couple.” What could go wrong?
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Just think of any holiday movie centered around a fake relationship and swap out all the snow for sunshine and the holly for lily pads.
Performance Worth Watching: In a movie where most of the performances are cruising along at a comfortable speed, I cherished every time Frankie Savige appeared as Rory’s boss Melody. The performance is pure 0-to-100, take-no-prisoners villainy. It felt like she was yelling at me, and I’m not even a junior publicist.
Memorable Dialogue: Speaking of Melody, love when she snarls at Rory, “Missing deadlines is not on brand, Rory. Making mistakes is not on brand.”
Sex and Skin:
Our Take: A Hallmark movie is a promise. Not to sound like a greeting card, but it’s kinda true! We know going into Hallmark movies that they aren’t going for Emmy wins, nor are they going for acclaim. They don’t exist to challenge viewers. They’re comfort food, like a slice of cheesecake. Maybe they’re a guilty pleasure, like eating a whole cheesecake. The one thing we can really hold these movies to is the promise they make via their premise. Does the movie deliver what it says it’s going to deliver?
On that metric, When Love Springs is a little bit of a letdown. Hallmark has many formulas on tap, and When Love Springs is like going to a soda fountain expecting Coke and getting Diet Pepsi. We’re promised a fake relationship romp, but that’s not ultimately what we get. The fake-boyfriend plot is introduced, yes, but it’s barely touched upon over the course of the movie. There are very few moments where they’re almost caught, or where they have to improvise a fake backstory on the spot. In fact, Rory and Noah spend most of the movie alone together, which means they have no one to fool. The formula is fun because of the fooling! Instead, When Love Springs feels more like the standard Hallmark movie where a big city woman finds love (and starts a small business) out in the country. It’s a totally different formula.
That’s a shame because you can see where, if the movie had stuck to its premise promise, it could have been something a little bit unique — even a little bit more complex than what we’re used to seeing in these kinds of movies. Both Noah and Rory have reasons to want to have a fake relationship: Rory wants to save face in front of her ex, and Noah has a travel critic coming who could either save or shut down his family’s B&B. There’s a missed connection, though, and instead of tying these two plots together — what if the travel critic was under the assumption that the B&B was run by a couple, or mistook Rory for the owner, or — the movie punts the travel critic’s arrival so far down the runtime that it’s practically not even part of the movie. It would have been a lot of fun to see both Rory and Noah trying to solve two problems with one fake relationship!
There are standouts in When Love Springs, namely Rhiannon Fish and the scenery. Fish is playing a completely different character from the one she played in A Picture of Her. Rory is broader and more comedic, and Fish really gets to show off her comedic timing in the very few moments of acting she gets to do as Noah’s “girlfriend.” And the lily pond that the third act is centered on is worth the attention. We love traveling to new places vicariously through Hallmark movies, and at least When Love Springs makes good on that promise.
Our Call: SKIP IT. When Love Springs feels like a very by-the-numbers version of Hallmark’s classic formula instead of being a fresh take on a more modern one.