.jpg "An Autumn Romance starring Jessica Lowndes & Chad Michael Murray")
Image: GAC Family Media
An Autumn Romance Plot Summary
When a librarian loses her job, she visits her brother's family in Montana. While she's there, she joins the town's effort to save the historical Graff Hotel from being renovated by a tech tycoon into an upscale tourist destination. The goal is to unearth a historically significant event that took place at the hotel to qualify it for landmark status, but she only has a week to put her research skills to the test.
Starring: Jessica Lowndes and Chad Michael Murray
Movie Grade: C+
GAC Launches Network with a Weak Movie
Romcom fans looking for an alternative to Hallmark Channel and its progressive turn were thrilled when former CEO, Bill Abbott, purchased GAC with the intent of working his movie magic to create the traditional movies they loved and that Hallmark had abandoned for woke programming.
While Abbott may have felt the heat to capitalize on this hunger for clean, family-friendly movies before people grew impatient, An Autumn Romance was a poor choice for a network premiere.
Instead of establishing GAC as a unique rival by entering the race for ratings strong, GAC released a first movie that came across as a generic Hallmark 2.0 story.
Viewers wanted unique content, and GAC gave us white noise. Plots about someone losing a job due to funding issues, real estate developers acquiring a beloved building and upsetting the townsfolk, and saving a place by establishing it as a historical landmark have already be done....to death. GAC knew critics would be watching to see if the network would be inclusive, so the channel bowed to pressure by making this movie diverse to an extreme. What is America's demographic? Go with those percentages, not more woke malarky.
Chivalry Is the Best Part of This Movie
Hallmark is militant when it comes to making sure their movies center on powerful women who don't need men, even though many female viewers appreciate the fairytale of a damsel in distress being rescued by Prince Charming.
An Autumn Romance brings back chivalry, and it's a welcome change from mainstream messaging. On her way to Montana, Taylor's (Lowndes) car hits ice and goes into a ditch. Joel (Murray) comes to the rescue. He even pays her towing bill. When she's cold, he lends her his jacket. Taylor's brother also keeps a watchful eye on his sister. What the viewer witnesses is not a dominating patriarchy, but two men being gentlemen. It's refreshing! We need more of this: men being men, and women being women.
An Ode to the Brontë Sisters
Book nerds, prepare to be titillated! While visiting Forest Ridge, Taylor borrows Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë from the town library. Taylor won't even date a guy if he can't name all three Brontë sisters (Charlotte, Emily, and Anne). It's one reason why she's impressed with Joel's character--he knows all three sisters and each of their works.
Charlotte's book, Jane Eyre, is my favorite. What's yours?
Jessice Lowndes & Chad Michael Murray Are Overrated
Lowndes and Murray are not my favorite actors. Lowndes has the voice of an angel (though she doesn't sing in this movie), her eyes are gorgeous, and she does a fine acting job. Her long, horse face is a little off-putting, however, and when she smiles, her face goes into an even odder shape. It would help if she cut her hair short to give her face the illusion of being more oval.
Murray also is a convincing actor who takes on each role like slipping into a comfortable pair of worn jeans. If you like tall, dark, and handsome, he's not your man. To appreciate him as a romantic lead, you have to lean towards tall, pale, and scruffy. His brows are in a constant furrow, and it's agitating. He always assumes a cocky swagger, and it's prickly.
You don't have to agree. (I can already feel the hate mail coming).
The Movie Has a 1970's Vibe
The movie starts in Taylor's Seattle library, and the setting looks antiquated. Behind dark-rimmed glasses, Taylor seems like a superhero hiding her true identity, like Diana Prince. When Taylor's road trip commences and she's winding through deserted roads under a canopy of fall foliage, background music plays that sounds similar to retro shows from the 1970's.
Even the staging is off. The residents of Forest Ridge are preparing for the annual Harvest Ball, which means decorating the old Graff Hotel. The decorations look generic, like they were scooped up in a half-off sale at the Dollar Tree. If you lived during the 70's, you know how awful the seasonal decorations were back then. No one knew any better because there was no variety like there is today. Everyone had the same, cheesy crap.
Even the announcer on the GAC network who introduces upcoming movies sounds like a blast from a past UHF channel.
Many other GAC original movies are on par with standard romcom networks, but An Autumn Romance does little to set GAC apart from the pack.
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