Hallmark For All Seasons

 

We bounced back, folks!  Hallmark went to Iceland this weekend and it looked freezing and wonderful all at the same time.  The third installment of this year’s Winterfest, Hallmark’s “Love on Iceland,” originally aired on January 18, 2020.  This movie starred Kaitlin Doubleday and Colin Donnell, with a fantastic assist by Patti Murin.  And if you checked out the credits of the people that worked on this movie, like I did, you know for a fact that the majority of this movie was filmed in Iceland (and it was GORGEOUS) (most of the people on the crew had names that ended in “-dottir” or “-sson” which is very Icelandic).

In a nutshell

The movie was good, but it was the scenery (and Patti Murin) that grabbed me and sucked me in.  I love places that are cold, and Iceland has been on my vacation bucket list for a very long time. This movie only made that desire even stronger – it was a visual feast.  And Patti Murin is just such a great actress – so charming and effortless.  I love her.

Plot (from Hallmark Channel website)

Seeking inspiration for work, Chloe (Kaitlin Doubleday) gathers her college travel group back together for a trip to Iceland. When Charlie (Colin Donnell), her ex and a member of the traveling group shows up, sparks fly.

Fun fact: Apparently Colin Donnell, who played Charlie, and Patti Murin, who played Chloe’s best pal Isabella – are a real-life couple! They met while doing musical theater and got married in 2015.  I had NO IDEA.

Actors

This was a great cast that all worked really well together.  Doubleday as Chloe was a nice mix of vulnerable but confident.  Murin was bubbly and bright as Isabella.  Donnell was channeling his inner Jon Hamm throughout much of the movie (but without the overt smarm that Hamm sometimes infuses in his acting (on purpose, it should be noted)).

Six Degrees of Kris Polaha:  Colin Donnell is three steps away from Polaha.  He was in a 2014 movie called “Every Secret Thing” which starred Diane Lane.  Back in 2006 Lane starred in a movie called “Hollywoodland” which also featured an actor named Larry Cedar.  Fast forward back to 2014 and Cedar shared a movie credit with Polaha in “Atlas Shrugged Part III.”

Chemistry

This entire cast was great together.  I totally believed that ever-supportive Isabella was Chloe’s best friend even 10 years after college (I’m assuming 10 years – I can’t remember if they mentioned how long it had been?).  I appreciated that they brought in Erin as Kenneth’s girlfriend (wife? Was that ever mentioned?).  She came in as an outsider to the group, which enabled her to have conversations with Chloe without being biased because of a shared history.

I thought Doubleday and Donnell had great chemistry together – which is hilarious considering Donnell and Murin are married, and I thought Murin and Joel Saemundsson (as the tour guide, Johann) had great compatibility on screen, too. I also loved all the Icelandic actors that they hired, from the B&B hosts to the folks that Chloe interviewed for her podcast, with their delicious accents and nordic good looks.

Tropes

There were only a handful of tropes in this movie, from what I saw.  The movie had so many big scarves that at some point I just had to laugh.  More on that in a bit.  They drank hot cocoa, the movie featured an ex-boyfriend coming back into the picture, and there was a giant misunderstanding late in the movie.  That’s really all that I noticed.  Comment below and tell me what I missed!

Did I Hear/See That Right?

I wrote down a lot of questions during this movie.  First, the cinematographer must have just learned about the gaussian blur underlay filter that is created in Photoshop, because during the entire cafe scene at the beginning of the movie, he used it LIBERALLY.  Specifically, in all the shots focusing on Isabella.  It was distracting, to say the least.  Look at the screengrab I took during the movie.  See how all the colors are heightened and yet everything in the scene but Patti Murin looks blurry?  That’s an old Photoshop trick that became popular in the early 2000s.  I used it all the time on my personal blog back in the day.  I was VERY distracted by this filter choice during this scene, especially since the remainder of the movie used very muted colors.

Next up, I know Chloe said she had some vacation time saved up, but would her boss really let her take off a week from work just as he’s giving her an assignment?  I mean, sure, it’s an assignment that could be done from anywhere.   But how did that conversation go?

Boss: Chloe, I need you to come up with some new ideas for the podcast network, and I need them quick.

Chloe: Okay.  By the way, I need to take a week off from work.

Boss: Sure, no problem.  What dates are you looking at?

Chloe: We leave tomorrow if I can help it.

Boss: Uh….

Isabella mentions early in the movie that the holidays were just over, so it was clearly still winter in Chicago where she and Chloe lived.  And they decide to go to Iceland for a vacation.  You know, where the temperatures are pretty much the same as they’d find in Chicago.  If I were Isabella I’d continue mentioning possible tropical locations instead of diving straight into ICELAND as the preferred locale for a winter break.

They also supposedly happened to go at the time of year when there is very little daylight in Iceland.  You see, Iceland is VERY FAR NORTH and as such in winter there may be less than 6 hours a day of sunlight.  SIX HOURS.  Not much sightseeing going on with only 6 hours of sunlight per day (it should be noted that the movie filmed in November, which is also a time of year with very short daylight hours).

And don’t get me started on the whole cost of the trip.  That house was enormous so it had to cost an arm and a leg.  Now granted, by going in January, this means that they went during the slow tourist season in Iceland.   But even so, do these folks have enough disposable cash laying around to spend $800-$1,000 pp on airfare, who knows how much to have a private house/BnB all to themselves AND have a dedicated tour guide of the week?  Other than Chloe they don’t really say what these people do, but living in Chicago and NYC is not cheap so I don’t see how they could possibly have a few thousand sitting on the side that can easily be spent on a whirlwind trip to Iceland.  Not when you probably stayed in a hostel on your last trip together.

Three nitpicks:

1. Why on earth does Isabella have her phone with her in the natural hot springs?  I don’t care how waterproof they say a phone is, I’m not tempting fate by taking it with me into a hot spring while on vacation.
2. When Charlie is writing notes to Chloe when they are at the bubble hotel, he writes a third note, debates for a moment on whether to share it with her, and opts to go to bed instead.  DON’T LEAVE ME HANGING, CHARLIE!  What did he write?  Why take the time to show that and not do a callback to it later in the movie where he shows her/tells her what he wrote????  Or at least let us, the audience, see what he wrote!?!?!?!?!?
3. Lastly, just how many coats and scarves did Chloe bring?  Endless number of scarves and at least four winter coats were on display in this movie, and yet she carried ONE LARGE suitcase for the entire trip.

Feelgoods

Those ice caves.  OH MY WORD, THOSE ICE CAVES!  I want to go to there.  They looked amazing.

The aforementioned hot spring.  I’ve always wanted to go to a spa that has a hot spring, and now I’ve decided that if I ever DO go to a hot spring, it must be in Iceland.

The bubble hotel.  YOU GUYS.  While it looks AMAZING and it’s something I’d love to do, the BASE PRICE is $484 per night for the bubble experience.  ONE NIGHT.  Did I mention that the characters in this movie must be independently wealthy?  I don’t care – I still want to stay in the bubble hotel.

Lastly, my favorite thing about this movie was Isabella.  I loved when you could tell that she liked the tour guide, and yet when she found out that he had asked Chloe out she was a supportive friend and basically said, “Have a good time.”  The next day, though, Isabella asked Chloe directly about the date – again, knowing that she liked him herself, but wanting to be a supportive friend.  And the GLEE on her face when Chloe said (paraphrasing here), “Oh, it wasn’t a date – we spent the whole time talking about you.”  That made the movie for me.  Isabella is an AWESOME best friend, y’all.

Re-watchability

Ummm…I’ve already watched it again.  When it re-aired during the Winterfest countdown this weekend I watched it a second time.  The country really is epically beautiful.  So while the story had some issues, I’m still a fan of this movie.  It’s too gorgeous not to be.

The Ranking

“Love on Iceland” sits between the other two Winterfest movies that have been released.

1. Winter in Vail (air date: Jan 4) – 623 pts – weighted score: 108.8 (76.4%)
2. Love On Iceland (air date: Jan 18) – 563 pts – weighted score: 99.4 (69.7%)
3. Love in Winterland (air date: Jan 11) – 508 pts – weighted score: 90.7 (63.6%)

To see where this movie lands in my overall rankings of Hallmark movies, visit my Hallmark Movie Rankings page!

What did you think of Hallmark’s “Love on Iceland”?  Comment below and let me know!

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