“True Love Blooms” aired on April 6, 2019 on the Hallmark Channel. It starred Sara Rue and Jordan Bridges. “True Love Blooms” was filmed in St. Petersburg, Florida. The neat thing about this movie is that Sara Rue and her friend Elias Madias went directly to Hallmark to pitch the idea for this movie, and got the green light! Madias wrote the script.
In a nutshell
For the most part I liked this movie a lot – with very few nitpicks other than the glaringly obvious one that we’ll talk about later.
Plot
Vicki (Rue) runs a local community garden that is bought out by a land developer, Chace (Bridges). She leads various protests in the hopes of saving the garden, but he also explains that he is not a bad guy as his company provides jobs and homes and is a worthy mission as well. Even as they argue over what should happen to the community garden, sparks fly as these two attempt to navigate their differences while trying to come to a compromise.
Actors
Both of these actors are outstanding. Sara Rue was adorable and vulnerable and determined and a lot of fun to watch. Jordan Bridges, who has been in a couple other Hallmark movies, most recently in “Christmas at Holly Lodge,” was really good and let me just state for the record that the hint of silver streak in his hair? TO DIE FOR. I was obsessed with it. He needs to never color that away. It’s divine.
Chemistry
These two most definitely had chemistry together and were extremely well suited to each other’s acting styles as well as physical interactions. Their almost kiss scene, in particular, was great. Even after the kiss was denied, they kept hands on each other – her touching his beard, for instance. So great. Not only that, but I loved the chemistry that Rue had with the woman who played her best friend (I can’t locate her name right now – if you know it, drop it in the comments for me). They were great in every scene they had together. Rue is two degrees away from Kris Polaha, having co-starred in 2002’s “The Ring” with Martin Henderson , who then co-starred with Polaha in “Devil’s Knot.”
Feelgoods
My main feelgoods came from the fact that despite their differences they still took the time to get to know each other instead of just becoming enemies on two sides of an issue. I also liked Chace continuing to accept all of Vicki’s plants that she kept bringing him.
Tropes
Thankfully, no empty coffee cups in this one as far as I could tell. But we did have an “evil” land developer, a deadline, a “trip” cute moment, and an almost kiss.
Did I Hear/See That Right?
Just one big issue with this movie: who, about 10 minutes into this movie, did NOT say to themselves, “Just move the garden to the roof.” I think every viewer in the nation said that to themselves. It was such a glaringly obvious plot resolution that I was aggravated that the entire movie was basically just deliberately avoiding the idea until the last five minutes. I mean, c’mon.
Re-watchability
But even with that glaring issue, I still really liked this movie. Most of it is due to the chemistry between Rue and Bridges, as well as this moment right here:
The Ranking
So where does it fit in the rankings? It wasn’t the highest scorer, but it was nothing to sneeze at either. Solidly in the upper half of the rankings.
- Winter Love Story (air date: January 19) – 685 pts – weighted score: 115.8 (81.2%)
- Love to the Rescue (air date: March 23) – 679 points – weighted score: 115.4 (80.9%)
- Mystery 101 (air date: January 27 (HMM)) – 454 pts – weighted score: 94.2 (80.5%)
- Love on the Menu (air date: February 23) – 642 pts – weighted score: 113.8 (79.9%)
- Love, Romance & Chocolate (air date: February 16) – 627 pts – weighted score: 110.2 (77.3%)
- Flip That Romance (air date: March 16) – 597 points – weighted score: 105.8 (74.2%)
- True Love Blooms (air date: April 6) – 598 points – weighted score: 103.1 (72.3%)
- The Story of Us (air date: February 9) – 605 pts – weighted score: 101.3 (71.1%)
- A Brush with Love (air date: March 30) – 563 points – weighted score: 97.7 (68.6%)
- Ruby Herring: Silent Witness (air date: January 20 (HMM)) – 357 pts – weighted score: 79.5 (67.9%)
- Love Under the Rainbow (air date: March 9) – 581 pts – weighted score: 96.0 (67.4%)
- One Winter Proposal (air date: January 12) – 535 pts – weighted score: 95.8 (67.2%)
- Just Add Romance (air date: March 2) – 548 points – weighted score: 95.6 (67.1%)
- Valentine in the Vineyard (air date: February 2) – 503 pts – weighted score: 89.5 (62.8%)
- Snowcoming (air date: January 26) – 485 pts – weighted score: 87.3 (61.2%)
- The Winter Castle (air date: January 5) – 475 pts – weighted score: 85.9 (60.2%)
- A Winter Princess (air date: January 18) – 380 pts – weighted score: 70.5 (49.5%)
To see where this movie lands in my entire ranking of Hallmark movies, visit my Hallmark Movie Rankings page!
What did you think of “True Love Blooms”?
Aisha Duran played the best friend, Ana. I pretty much agree with your entire assessment but just not your ranking. For me this was the best of the winter and spring movies. I just adored the chemistry between these two, and I have to give kudos to Elias Madias for the script. It pretty much followed the typical Hallmark script – on opposite sides of an issue, near kiss, misunderstanding, happy ending – but somehow he made it seem fresh and new. I think mostly because of the dialogue – there was so much good stuff in there delivered wonderfully by these great actors. I even agree that the resolution was telegraphed from the beginning, but I can also allow for how that might not have been the first thing that popped into their minds. We have the benefit of a bazillion Hallmark movies under our belt; the characters didn’t. ;0 All in all, I thought this was one of the most satisfying Hallmark movies of recent memory and certainly one of the sexiest (in that chaste Hallmark-movie kind of way) ever. That near kiss in the garden was, as you so rightly pointed out, superb!
Well, the good news is that this movie is still pretty high for the year in my rankings. It’s currently #15 out of 40, which is pretty good! And thanks for filling in the missing actor names for me, Nan!