My main reason for seeing 'Love by the Book' was for Hallmark completest sake, started watching their work as undemanding escapism (or at least that was the intent) back around 2019. Focusing solely on their Christmas output for a while and then watching overtime their other seasonal blocks. Have seen Leah Renee in other things, and she is rather take and leave for me depending on how her character is written. Am less familiar with Kristopher Turner.
'Love by the Book' did sound charming, have seen Hallmark films centered around literature and romance before and in some cases quite well and even very well in the best cases. 'Love by the Book' is one of the films that didn't execute the formula very well at all. Hallmark did do quite a lot of good films in 2015 and most of the most that year was watchable, but this was one of the misses and actually one of the worst examples. A few good things, but a lot of bad with the worst aspects done pretty awfully.
Am going to start with the good. It looks nice, with the scenery being lovely.
It has two good performances, Turner as an easy going and likeable leading man and Cherilyn Wilson as the very charming and spirited sister that she attacks with gusto without over-compensating. Her subplot is much more interesting than the main one and would have liked to have seen more of it.
However, Renee is really quite terrible in a very affected performance, which sees a lot of hamminess and very breathy line delivery that all got really irritating when the film went increasingly overboard with her negative traits. Which far outweigh her virtues and make the further mistake of being ridiculously exaggerated, which made her character absolutely impossible to like or root for. The supporting cast are undistinguished at best, with only Wilson standing out, with very little to work with. There is no chemistry between Renee and Turner, what he saw in her the shallower and more selfish she got requires some suspension of disbelief.
In fact the chemistry between the entire cast is barely existent and only Turner and Wilson's characters are likeable or interesting. The others are dull or/and annoying to an over-bearing degree, especially Renee's. The script is very stilted and sophomoric and is full of cringe worthy cheese and cavity inducing sentiment, and the story has no energy, is very predictable and emotionally is very bland in every way, wit, charm, emotion, tension are completely absent. It also ends too neatly.
Summing up, very mediocre effort. 4/10.
