This was well done and featured some lovely views of Glacier National Park (even though it was filmed, as usual, in British Columbia). After all the fake snow, in all the recent Christmas movies, it was refreshing to see real snow in a real winter setting in the mountains.
Ashley Newbrough was as good as I've ever seen her as Heather, an avalanche forecasting expert who is invited by a friend to try her new technology at a ski resort in the Park. She was passionate and given some great lines by writer Christie Will Wolf.
Stephen Huszar played Chris, the hunky director of the local mountain rescue team. Chris comes across as condescending and a bit misogynistic. He's inexplicably opposed to Heather's tech system for predicting an avalanche ("I don't trust technology") even though he already uses some technology as part of his mountain rescue program (the beacons). It was really frustrating to watch him be so arrogant (he actually claimed that when it comes to avalanches, he "never gets it wrong"). They try to explain "why" he was like that later but his dismissive attitude was annoying.
Heather, understandably, is befuddled by his narrow minded thinking:
"It's meant to be a tool that you incorporate"
"Make me understand why your work and mine can't coexist."
But Heather's cute bubbly sister Riley (played with an engaging sparkle by Tegan Moss) is committed from the beginning to getting Heather to see Chris as a love interest (primarily based on his looks). Riley: "When your heart is talking, you need to listen."
I loved Heather's reaction: "He's really cute but I'm not into how he dismisses the work that I do. It's insulting."
Fortunately, Chris is also presented as someone dedicated to helping others and as a loving widowed father of an 11 year old. His daughter Samantha is impressively played by a young actress named Amélie Wolf. As a father of a wonderful caring daughter, I always enjoy a good depiction of a strong father daughter relationship like the one presented here. But as much as Samantha loves her father, she desperately wants and needs a mother figure. And the passage of 9 years since the loss of her mother makes her more receptive to a possible replacement.
I LOVED the multiple references to Taylor Swift. Samantha is shown to be a big fan who wants tickets (good luck with that in Montana) and it's nice to see Hallmark acknowledge this huge cultural phenomenon (I'm driving out to Arizona and taking my kids to the opening night of her Eras tour).
There's an interesting series of interactions between Samantha and Chris' wannabe girlfriend Sonya (Samantha: "You put on lipstick before you go to bed? I've never seen that before."). At first I didn't get why Samantha listened to Sonya after an inappropriate instruction. But then I realized that she was raised to respect her elders (until given a good reason not to). And I liked how the writer gave Samantha a nice line to deliver later in the movie to Sonya (well played by Teagan Vincze)
Apparently, according to IMDb, the VERY flattering bikini shot of Ashley Newbrough was the first bikini shot ever seen in a Hallmark movie. That seems really hard to believe (and ironic that it occurs in a winter movie at a ski lodge), but I was pleasantly surprised by it. Women will, no doubt, be just as impressed by the naked torso shot of Huszar.
Loved Heather's two hand grab. A bit unexpected in a Hallmark movie.
LOVED the snow angels! So joyful!
Did not love how they just dropped Riley's story. That really bothered me as did Heather's apparent disinterest in the results of Riley's pregnancy test. I get that these movies are restricted due to time considerations, but then don't include a storyline involving a VERY significant and important test if you can't fit in Heather being there for her sister.
But I enjoyed the movie and appreciated the strong assertive lines given to Ashley Newbrough.
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