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Hallmark’s “A Taste of Summer”

“A Taste of Summer” aired August 10, 2019 on the Hallmark Channel. The movie starred spouses-in-real-life Eric Winter and Roselyn Sanchez. It was filmed primarily in Vancouver, Canada, despite the story being set in a sleepy seaside town in Massachusetts.

In a nutshell

For the second week in a row for Hallmark premiere movies, we have a movie that had potential but fell flat. It wasn’t the lack of chemistry between Winter and Sanchez, per se, but how their story was crafted. A script utterly lacking in romance was their downfall. But more on that later.

Plot

Sous chef, Gabby (Sanchez), is losing her spark. After leaving her job in New York (and dumping her non-committal boyfriend) she moves to her sister’s small town of Bright Shore and decides to open a restaurant of her own. Caleb (Winter) runs a nearby restaurant, and is none to pleased when competition comes to town. But maybe they can figure out a way to co-exist?

Actors

Let’s face it. The camera loves these two. They are both extremely easy on the eye. I also enjoyed seeing a couple Hallmark regulars as secondary characters AND was thrilled when I saw Marco Grazzini was in the cast. Sadly, he was only in one scene, as the boyfriend Gabby dumps at the beginning of the movie. PLEASE, Hallmark! Give Grazzini a bigger role next time! He was great in The Story of Us back in February, and he deserves more than just 1-2 scenes next time!

As for the six degrees of Kris Polaha, Eric Winter is only two degrees away from Kris Polaha. He starred in “Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay” in 2008 with Wilbur Fitzgerald, who then turned around and co-starred with Polaha in 2013’s “Devil’s Knot.”

Chemistry

It was nice having a real-life couple on the screen together, and I can’t say that they lacked chemistry, per se. They very worked well together on screen and in that respect shared good chemistry of familiarity. Unfortunately the script they worked from completely lacked in ANY hint of romance whatsoever, and then in the last 20 minutes decided to shoehorn in some romance when Gabby’s sous chef said something like, “He helped you? He must REALLY like you.” What are we, 12?

Feelgoods

None. None at all.

Tropes

This movie started out strong on the tropes, which is saying a lot given it’s not a Christmas holiday movie! We had cooking scenes (obviously), the sister’s house had a front porch, the sister wore a circle necklace, AND it featured Milsean Shoppe, which shows up from time to time in Hallmark movies. All of those showed up in the first 10-15 minutes. After that I didn’t notice any tropes popping up (and thankfully no empty coffee cups).

Did I Hear/See That Right?

I was confused about a lot of things in this movie. First of all, one could assume that Gabby and her sister enjoyed the same upbringing. But one sister has no accent whatsoever and the other one does. Huh?

One would also think that opening a restaurant takes a lot longer than a month, what with the length of time necessary to lease the place, get quotes from contractors, get all the necessary permits approved, have the actual construction work done, apply to (and get approval from) the Secretary of State to open the business. Then there’s interviewing, hiring and training staff, figuring out the menu, coming up with a marketing plan. And maybe I missed it, but HOW could someone afford to do all this? Maybe I missed it, but did her former boss invest in the restaurant? Did she take out a loan? Magically have the money in her bank account? No way a sous chef from NYC is able to pay for all on her own.

And let’s not forget about Delaney’s, the restaurant Caleb and his brother owns. Apparently their menu sucks because SWEET POTATO FRIES are considered a game changer. As are $10 backets of unlimited wings. Last I checked, those items are not restaurant-makers that bring the masses running to what appears to possibly be the ONLY restaurant in town. No. PROXIMITY is what brings people into your restaurant, Caleb.

My main complaint, however, is that Gabby herself made an angry comment to Caleb at about the 1 hr 30 min mark of the movie when she found out he was making almost the exact same dish at the food festival, saying “I thought we were finally going to be friends.” Then after the competition ends all of a sudden all is well and he goes in for a kiss. What?! Dude, when did she EVER give you an inkling that she was into you? For heaven’s sake, you were fighting before the competition and now she wins and suddenly “hey, let’s hook up?” No. No no no. Bad writing. I don’t care how gorgeous the couple is together on screen.

Re-watchability

Not ever planning on watching this one again. It was bad, bad, bad.

The Ranking

So where does it fit in the rankings? I knew it wouldn’t be the lowest score of the year thus far, but I knew it would be close.

Winter Love Story (air date: January 19) – 685 pts – weighted score: 115.8 (81.2%)
Love to the Rescue (air date: March 23) – 679 pts – 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%)
Bottled With Love (air date: April 13) – 649 pts – weighted score: 112.2 (78.7%)
Love Takes Flight (air date: April 27) – 670 pts – weighted score: 111.0 (77.9%)
Love, Romance & Chocolate (air date: February 16) – 627 pts – weighted score: 110.2 (77.3%)
The Last Bridesmaid (air date: June 22) – 643 pts – weighted score: 109.2 (76.6%)
Paris, Wine & Romance (air date: May 4) – 638 pts – weighted score: 108.3 (76.0%)
My Boyfriend’s Back: Wedding March 5 (air date: June 8) – 635 pts – weighted score: 108.0 (75.8%)
Flip That Romance (air date: March 16) – 597 pts – weighted score: 105.8 (74.2%)
Mystery 101: Playing Dead (air date: June 23 (HMM)) – 425 pts – weighted score: 86.5 (73.9%)
True Love Blooms (air date: April 6) – 598 pts – 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 pts – weighted score: 97.7 (68.6%)
Ruby Herring: Silent Witness (air date: January 20 (HMM)) – 357 pts – weighted score: 79.5 (67.9%)
Love, Unleashed (air date: July 6, 2019) – 559 pts – weighted score: 96.2 (67.5%)
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 pts – weighted score: 95.6 (67.1%)
From Friend to Fiance (air date: May 25) – 555 pts – weighted score: 94.8% (66.5%)
Christmas Camp (air date: July 11) – 530 pts – weighted score: 93.9 (65.9%)
Love and Sunshine (air date: Aug 3) – 504 pts – weighted score: 91.7 (64.3%)
Crossword Mysteries: A Puzzle to Die For (air date: March 10 (HMM) – 354 pts – weighted score: 74.1 (63.3%)
Sister of the Bride (air date: June 29) – 516 pts – weighted score: 89.8 (63.0%)
Valentine in the Vineyard (air date: February 2) – 503 pts – weighted score: 89.5 (62.8%)
Love, Take Two (air date: June 15) – 507 pts – weighted score: 87.8 (61.6%)
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%)
Sailing Into Love (air date: May 18) – 455 pts – weighted score: 78.0 (54.7%)
Rome in Love (air date: July 27) – 436 pts – weighted score: 76.7 (53.8%)
A Taste of Summer (air date: Aug 10) – 403 pts – weighted score: 70.9 (49.7%)
A Winter Princess (air date: January 18) – 380 pts – weighted score: 70.5 (49.5%)
A Feeling of Home (air date: May 11) – 386 pts – weighted score: 69.7% (48.9%)
Love in the Sun (air date: June 1) – 361 pts – weighted score: 62.5 (43.8%)