Hallmark For All Seasons

A Little Romance

Love Under the Olive Tree

I think we can all agree that it was nice to have another new movie to watch this weekend, even if it was originally scheduled to air in 2019. In fact, this fall movie was slated to air in September 2019, got pulled and moved to the Hallmark Movies Now app, only to get yanked again and shelved until this past weekend. This is why we got a “fall harvest” movie during the summer months. It was filmed in British Columbia, Canada and featured some gorgeous outdoor location shooting. Peter DeLuise directed, while Samantha Herman co-wrote it with the story by newcomer Jenna Milly. Herman previously wrote “Mingle All the Way” and “Sense, Sensibility & Snowmen.”

In a nutshell

I questioned when this movie got pulled not once, but twice. Hallmark pulls movies from time to time (see: Jessy Schram and Niall Matter’s “Country at Heart” which got pulled from last month’s schedule without warning), but to have them dump it onto their app only to pull it again…that wasn’t a good sign. I thought that perhaps they had a bad movie on their hands. And while this wasn’t a great movie (I had SOOOOO many questions), it was enjoyable enough and I’m glad it finally aired.

Plot for “Love Under the Olive Tree”

The unofficial prize of Sunset Valley’s annual olive oil contest is a land parcel with disputed ownership. When feisty Nicole (Tori Anderson) and competitive childhood friend Jake (Benjamin Hollingsworth) face-off, they never expect sparks to fly.

Actors/Chemistry

The cast was mostly fine – Anderson and Hollingsworth were good together. I have no complaints about their acting, their portrayals or their chemistry.

My main concern was the casting of the grandpas. The casting agent put two very young looking actors in the role of Grandpa Brandini (Jerry Wasserman) and Grandpa Cabella (Gardiner Millar). It was distracting in some scenes because Millar in particular appeared to be almost the same age as the actor portraying Nicole’s dad (Hrothgar Mathews).

Six Degrees of Kris Polaha: Benjamin Hollingsworth is three degrees away from Kristoffer Polaha. He had a role the 2019 Liam Neeson film, “Cold Pursuit,” which also featured an actor named William Forsythe. Forsythe co-starred with Frances Fisher in 1988’s “Patty Hearst.” Polaha fans know that Fisher shared the screen with him in 2018’s “Run the Race.”

Tropes in “Love Under the Olive Tree”

This movie had modest tropes, the biggest being the small town family-owned business(es) and a family feud.

Did I Hear/See That Right?

In the first four minutes of the movie I had so many questions – and the questions kept coming.

1. Does leadership skip a generation? In both families, the corporations go from grandpas to grandkids. Nicole’s parents are useless, and Jake’s parents are snobs. That seemed to be their only roles and they apparently were not involved in the day to day of the business at all (although Jake’s dad was VERY mad late in the movie when he found out that Jake apparently told Nicole about Quicken, the accounting software they probably use).

2. Why an injunction? Have these people never heard of adverse possession? Have they never hired a surveyor to come out and mark out property lines? The entire movie could have been tied up immediately had they spent the $600 on a surveyor to come out and put down some stakes to show the property lines.

3. The parents are terrible. I’ve said it already, but one set apparently only cares about dancing lessons, and the other are just rude. Are Nicole’s parents retired? How are they messing around with dance lessons while Grandpa is overdue to retire?

4. To feud or not to feud? At one point Nicole says, “I forgot that our grandpas worked together.” Um. How? The whole movie centers around a longstanding feud BECAUSE they worked together.

5. Long lasting lipstick. Nicole had on lipstick throughout the whole movie. Spending the day outside working on the olive farm? Wear that lipstick! Spending the day taste testing oils all day? Wear that lipstick! After a while it became distracting.

6. The winner is? So the judge settles the court dispute by stating that the winner of the olive oil contest gets the land. What if some upstart olive oil maker came in and won? Does that guy get the land?

7. Wasn’t this movie called Love Fall & Order? Watching this movie, I felt like I’d already seen this one. Family feud over a piece of land? Check. Fall harvest movie? Check. Main characters know each other since childhood? Check. Main characters participate in games? Check (you may recall in LF&O they played trivia). They literally just replaced flowers with olive oil and essentially made the same movie. I suspect THIS is why “Olive Tree” was pulled from the schedule.

I’ll stop there, but this list could easily become 10+ items if I put in all my nitpicks.

Feelgoods

The old Milsean Shoppe made an appearance. This location has been used many, many times in Hallmark movies, most notably “The Birthday Wish” and “Time for You to Come Home for Christmas.”

Re-watchability

“Tree” isn’t the worst movie of the year, and the score is deceptively low because of all the plot issues, but I did like the movie well enough that I would probably watch it again.

The Ranking

The plotholes in “Love Under the Olive Tree” brought the score WAY down. ALSO, I need to note that I realized that my original score for Love in the Forecast had an error. I corrected the error in the spreadsheet, and the proper score is listed below. Sadly, this one is very low in the rankings and I don’t see it moving up much through the rest of the year. “Love Under the Olive Tree” is sitting near the bottom thus far.

Matching Hearts (air date: Feb 8) – 640 pts – weighted score: 109.0 (76.5%)
Winter in Vail (air date: Jan 4) – 623 pts – weighted score: 108.8 (76.4%)
Love in Store (air date: Feb 22) – 637 pts – weighted score: 108.2 (75.9%)
The Secret Ingredient (air date: Feb 15) – 617 pts – weighted score: 105.2 (73.8%)
You’re Bacon Me Crazy (air date: Apr 4) – 591 pts – weighted score: 104.0 (72.9%)
Fashionably Yours (air date: Apr 11) – 594 pts – weighted score: 102.6 (72.0%)
A Valentine’s Match (air date: Feb 1) – 562 pts – weighted score: 99.8 (70.0%)
Love On Iceland (air date: Jan 18) – 563 pts – weighted score: 99.4 (69.7%)
Hearts of Winter (air date: Jan 25) – 561 pts – weighted score: 98.2 (68.9%)
Just My Type (air date: Mar 28) – 565 pts – weighted score: 95.4% (66.9%)
Bad Date Chronicles (air date: Feb 28) – 520 pts – weighted score: 91.0 (63.9%)
Love in Winterland (air date: Jan 11) – 508 pts – weighted score: 90.7 (63.6%)
Nature of Love (air date: Apr 18) – 520 pts – weighted score: 90.3 (63.3%)
Amazing Winter Romance (air date: Jan 20) – 487 pts – weighted score: 85.6 (60.1%)
Love Under the Olive Tree (air date: June 20) – 473 pts – weighted score: 85.0 (59.6%)
In the Key of Love (air date: Mar 14) – 470 pts – weighted score: 82.5 (57.9%)
Love in the Forecast (air date: Jun 13) – 440 pts – weighted score: 72.5 (50.8%)
How to Train Your Husband (air date: May 16) – 350 pts – weighted score: 62.5 (43.9%)