It was ok
I finally got to watch this last night. I love Ryan Paevey ever since seeing him in "Unleashing Mr. Darcy" so I was excited to see this one and he was 200% perfect for the role. However, you will DEFINITELY need to put your Hallmark Christmas blinders on for this regarding the logic of the story. I usually don't care for the plots with magical powers involved and the idea of time travel can be just a little too much. but I think over all they did a good job.
I loved the idea of the actors playing the parts of the characters as I do community theater and really related to what the actors were doing and feeling. They were definitely going for a Downton Abbey feel with the old manner house. I loved all their reactions to Paevey's character showing up and how much he looked like the painting.
the Fish out of Water stuff if pretty good. I liked how calm Paevey can be and some of his reactions, like at the pizza place and his 100 year old tooth paste, were pretty good. I think I would have liked to have seen a little more of it. i know time is an issue and they want to focus on the romance but this is a guy who has literally missed 100 years of history. I never got a sense of him being overwhelmed at the total advancement of time. We went thru 2 world wars, a major pandemic, the arrival of the Beatles and people in space; it's a LOT of time and sadly, they condensed it to just 'the internet'. And now he's in a place where he has literally lost EVERYTHING. his money, his home, his business and his only reaction was a low 'now what?". Again, not a major complaint as they have time issues and need to focus on the story but it would have been nice to see a little more depth here.
The message was pretty awesome. As heart breaking as his story is, losing his fiancé and finding out she married his rival was, it was a great message about moving on and forgiving your past and enjoying the present. Realizing the relationship never would have worked and Eliza was happier with someone else was a great moment. Actually...I loved his Christmas speech. Probably one of the best I've seen in these movies. This is something I have been currently dealing with and the pandemic is almost like forcing me into some kind of reset. Losing my outlet in community theater and losing contact with people thru all this is going to be a major transition for when we can finally go back to normal. This movie kind of put a lot of my issues in perspective and I thought was really well done.
All in all, a cute movie with some amazing eye candy in Ryan Paevey's performance. An interesting premise but don't focus too hard on the logistical stuff.