What I Did for Love (2006) Reviews

• Great Family Movie

  cgpedley2007-10-25

  Obviously some people care more about the acting than the whole point of the movie. This is a VERY positive movie showing that one does NOT have to be set in their ways and can change. The father DID NOT like Sadie's boyfriend until he saved him from a wolf and survived outside overnight in the cold mountains. The theme of people being able to change is a theme which is positive and is more important than how great the acting was. I didn't care to observe the acting critically because I was drawn into the movie. After all I thought that's what good acting was .. being able to draw your audience into your story. At least that is what our director told us...a director who does this for a living. I recommend this highly for those who are fed up with the normal Hollywood fare and want a movie that your whole family could watch and admire.

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• Irritatingly unreal

  morlvera2010-10-14

  OK, it's just a Hallmark movie, I shouldn't take it too seriously and a lot of the production crew will be on autopilot, but I wanted more nuance than this. I'm a little surprised at some of the "pro family" reviews as well. The main theme seemed to be "be as obnoxious to your unfamiliar guests as possible and maybe your daughter will marry someone like you". This hardly seems the stuff of Christmas sentiment (unless you count The Grinch). I just couldn't buy into the bigoted hick stereotype as being gruff but lovable, just unpleasant. The daughter's role seemed to consist of smiling weakly while her boyfriend was metaphorically spat on from all sides. If the roles were reversed and the boyfriend's parents made her take ice cold baths every morning and strip naked to serve drinks to their society friends, somehow the family friendly motif would be put into sharp relief. Everybody's family could be this loathsome to strangers if they really tried, but why would you celebrate it? Why would you reward their climb from boorish vindictiveness to grudging acceptance as attaining a state of grace and forgiveness? I know that TV movies tend to have broad-brush plot lines with little room for subtlety, but the creative contempt and continuous humiliation that the daughter's family put him through just irritates after a while and is too obviously there simply to hang the sub-plots from. No one would keep putting up with this level of abuse with little or no help from their partner and the unreality reminds you that this is just a product. You can't lose yourself in something this caricatured.

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• Terrible movie

  TallPineTree2006-12-25

  This is the story of a big city doctor (Sadie) bringing her lawyer boyfriend (Travis) home to the ranch where she grew up to meet her family (widowed dad and brothers) for the first time. The boyfriend wants to marry her. She wants to take it slower and for her father to meet him first, even though she is convinced her dad will love him. He is a city boy and wants to make a good impression, and the family is rural as they live on a ranch. Sadie has an ex-boyfriend back in the town she grew up in who really wants to reunite with her. Everything goes wrong for the boyfriend until everything goes right in time for a happy ending with life lessons learned. A terrible movie, even for a TV movie. The actress playing Sadie is awful. At no time did I believe Sadie was a doctor, nor did I believe she grew up on a ranch. Sadie seemed to me to be a spoiled city girl with no clue. She was a totally unlikeable character. Now, I know the movie's plot called for the boyfriend to do some stupid things out of ignorance of ranching life, but I was thinking if she was my girlfriend, knowing I was ignorant and a fish-out-of-water, and didn't take a moment to explain some things, is she the right person for me? The boyfriend, Travis, was hapless and pathetic. A lawyer, yes. A successful lawyer, no. Sadie is an only daughter and supposedly the father is protective of his only daughter, but mainly he came across as crusty. At least the actor playing this character had a little charisma and tried to act in his limited role. Sadie's brothers were throwaway characters. Sally Struthers is an Aunt who wants Sadie to reunite with Sadie's ex-boyfriend. Why? Because the plot needs a reason for the obvious one-note loser of an ex-boyfriend to show up to be the story's bad guy. The Aunt also had a slight subplot which... who cares! Throw in some mumbo-jumbo about environmentalists and grazing rights and wolves. The writer doesn't seem to understand the issues, and if she did, she didn't let that get in the way of the story. The writer seemed to not want to offend anyone and her solution of the environmentalists buying instead of taking the grazing rights, and then the ranchers buying grazing rights elsewhere had the problem that grazing rights are associated with land and they don't make new land or new leases. I shook my head in disbelief when the solution was to take the money and buy new grazing rights somewhere else. And where would that be? So the grazing rights solution should tick off the ranchers watching the movie. The environmentalists should be ticked off as someone in the movie is threatened by a wolf and needs to be saved. I live in Montana where the government is re-establishing wolf packs in the area (Montana, Idaho, and Yellowstone Nat'l park). What wolf supporters are saying is that wolves don't attack people. Livestock, yes. People, no. This movie and its portrayal of wolves should upset the environmentalists. I kept thinking the movie couldn't get any worse but then they wrapped it up with a 'can't we all just be friends' happy ending. The boyfriend at the last minute was able to save the day, win a fight, bake a fretata everyone adored, and win over everyone. Surprise. Now, I can like a clichéd movie as much as the next guy, but to ignore the clichés one needs interesting actors. The dull actors in this movie couldn't overcome the heavy handed and terrible story. The only thing I liked about this movie was a couple scenes of a sunrise/sunset that was pretty. Avoid this movie!

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• I loved this movie!!!

  tcleaver20052007-04-07

  I enjoyed this movie very much. I believe it to be very realistic. Many city people really do act like this guy when they go to the country. I found it to be a nice clean movie that the whole family can enjoy! There needs to be more movies like this one made. If you like a good clean romantic comedy, this is a must see. I would recommend it to anyone. I think the actors and actresses do a great job of portraying their parts. You do not see to many movies that are based on reality. This one has hard times and good times. It also has some good morals brought out in it. For instance, the father didn't see the boyfriend's inner self--all he could see was a big city lawyer that he didn't like. He thought the guy was dumb and did all he could to make his life miserable. His daughter, however, remained very loyal to her father and waited for her father's blessing on her marriage. It also shows that crimes don't pay. The ex-boyfriend was out to get her current boyfriend and blamed him for things that he had not done. In the end, the truth came out. The movie doesn't end there though. Everyone that was at odds with each other reconciled at the end. It has a very happy ending. I think that most people would enjoy this movie a lot. It is worth seeing at least once. I myself have watched it several times.

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• one to skip

  jrw-project2012-12-30

  I love a cheesy Christmas movie. I collect them on DVD and watch all of them every year along with family and friends. I even enjoy many Hallmark movies. I bought this one last year and was looking forward to seeing it, but this was unwatchable. And let me just say that my standards for Christmas movies are very low. The "Morlvera" review hit this on the head. The characters were so sad. Most of the people I know who live in the country, farm and hunt, would be offended by the way they are portrayed in this movie. The characters are charmless, rude and celebrate ignorance. I wanted to enjoy this, but I found the stereotypes offensive. There was no character in this movie who was believable enough to care about. I'm glad to know there was a happy ending, but 10 minutes into the movie, I just didn't care. One reviewer complained that there was too much emphasis on the acting. I didn't even notice the acting for the very poor script. Simple, old-fashioned and cliché are all fine with me, especially at Christmas. Even so, I don't think it's too much to ask for a screen play that is at least professional. I have seen original church Christmas plays with better character development and a more nuanced story line. I think a Christmas movie should do one or more of three things:1)make me feel warm and fuzzy, 2)make me laugh,or 3)make me think. This movie did none of those things.

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