Branching Out - Hallmark

This week’s movie premiere was not quite typical for Hallmark rom-coms. Some might even say the topic is a little more controversial. But there’s no denying this one tugged at my heartstrings a bit. It had humor, emotional moments, chemistry, and a wonderful girl who pretty much stole the show in my opinion. As you can see I’ve got a lot to say about this one so let’s dive right in and talk about it!

Branching Out, starring Sarah Drew and Juan Pablo Di Pace, premiered on Hallmark Channel on April 27th.  After I saw Sarah Drew in Guiding Emily I couldn’t wait to see her again in this one. I was almost nervous that I might be getting too hyped up before I ever saw it because I didn’t want to set my expectations too high. But let me just say there’s a huge, huge difference in the quality of this movie over another one I’ll be reviewing soon.  I always want to love the new Hallmark releases, and this one did not disappoint! I had never even heard of Juan Pablo Di Pace until now even though he does have one other Hallmark movie called Raise a Glass to Love. I noticed it takes place at a vineyard. I may just have to watch that one, soon. Oh and he’s also got a bit of a musical background, so yes, we get to hear some of his talent in this movie, too!

So, Branching Out opens first thing in the morning. Yep, just like last week’s movie! It’s 7am in what I believe is Salt Lake City. I think I caught a glimpse of the Mormon temple and the capitol building here.

Now, My only nit-pick in this opening scene is our main character, Amelia, played by Sarah Drew, is a single mom who has to get herself ready for work and her 10-year-old daughter ready for school, and she has her alarm set for 7am.  Have you ever looked outside and noticed the traffic on the roads already at 7am?  I’m just suggesting that if they were attempting to show a realistic representation of life as a working mom, perhaps they should have considered having her wake up just a little earlier. That’s all.

But then again, we also see both Amelia and her daughter, Ruby, played by Cora Bella, rushing out the door with a guitar in Ruby’s hand, but leaving behind a lunch box and a backpack on the counter because they’re running late. I think the purpose of this scene is for us to notice the lunchbox has a silhouette of Taylor Swift on it and the backpack is covered in music-themed patches. Clearly, Ruby loves music.

Next we’re introduced to T.J. Actually, first we get a glimpse of his pristine-conditioned classic red Mustang parked outside of a music studio.  T.J. is inside recording a song and you can just tell from the look on both his face, as well as his producer’s, that he’s having an off day.

But then check out this next scene. He’s driving home way out in a rural area into a farm community. We see him driving past a red barn and then he pulls up to this gorgeous house!

Inside the house we meet TJ’s family. His mother is planning a birthday party for his sister’s son. His sister wants to keep the party contained a bit, but it’s clear their family parties are typically huge events and mom and sister argue a bit, in a fun way though, over planning this party. And then just as TJ is ready to go off to start the day working the family business, their dad offers him a taste of a fresh breakfast pastry he just made from a new recipe he’s trying out. 

And then we were back to Amelia again. She’s now showing up for work at a construction site for a new residential neighborhood where we meet her business partner and good friend, Maura. It turns out one of those two lunches we saw in the earlier scene was for Maura! Maura rolls her eyes at it but clearly, Amelia is very careful about spending money.

Now, unlike most Hallmark movies where the children may appear in a couple of scenes, Ruby the daughter has a significant role in this one. And Cora Bella, who plays this character, does NOT disappoint in my opinion. I don’t find many child actors who can say their lines naturally without sounding like they’re reading a script. Now maybe that’s a big credit to the script-writer, I think they call that the teleplay, or the director in this one, I’m not sure. But Cora Bella even has a talent for sarcasm. I loved her scenes. They were truly believable.

Really quick, I looked up the writer and found the teleplay was by Joie Botkin. I discovered she also worked on 3 Bed, 2 Bath, 1 Ghost, Cranberry Christmas (one of my favorites!), and Christmas in Vienna. I haven’t seen that one, yet, but I couldn’t help but notice it also stars Sarah Drew.  That one’s available to stream on Hallmark Movies Now so guess what I’ll be watching next!

Okay, back to the movie. This next scene is important because it sets up the premise of the entire movie. Ruby is in school and her teacher assigns a big project for the students to make a family tree. This is where we find out Ruby has never known her father. And I don’t how realistic this is for a 9-year-old, so I’m just going with it here, but if you’ve seen the previews for this one then you must have seen where Ruby walks up to her teacher’s desk and asks her if she knows what IVF is. I have no idea how much Ruby really understands that herself, but it doesn’t even matter because what she certainly does understand is the fact that neither she nor her mother actually knows who her father is. And apparently her mother was an only child herself whose father left her when she was young. And even her mother died when Ruby was just 2 years old. So Ruby’s mother is truly the only family she has ever known.

Fortunately, that’s all about to change and this movie is a wonderful storytelling of just how that all happened.

When Amelia picks up Ruby from school that day they talk about the family tree project and I love how Ruby describes her little family tree as not being a tree but a log.

Ruby really wants to find her dad, so Amelia finally shows her the donor sheet that included some basic information about her biological father. Even Ruby looks skeptical at just seeing how very basic the sheet is. Is this how you picked him? But then Amelia remembers she was moved by the sound of his laugh and she still has the recording of his voice that she plays for Ruby to hear. How sweet is this beaming smile at the first sounds she hears of her father’s voice?!

Obviously, this is a stressful time for Amelia. She’s always known her daughter would eventually ask questions and possibly want to find her father, but she certainly didn’t expect that time to come now. Fortunately, Amelia has a good friend in Maura to share her feelings and concerns about wanting to protect Ruby. She doesn’t have any idea what her father could really be like. After all, he’s a complete stranger and that’s scary.

Maura suggests that the first step to even finding him at this point is through a genetic registry.  And while Ruby is super cute with the way she talks her mom into getting a genetic testing kit, this next scene of Amelia talking to Maura is particularly moving. I’m becoming quite a fan of Sarah Drew’s. She does an amazing job conveying just how emotional this scene is for Amelia, thinking about how much their lives are about to change if or once they find a match.

When the DNA results do come back, the one confirmed match is that of a Sofia Cruz, and the site suggests that she’s either a half sibling, a grandparent or an aunt. Well, it turns out she’s her grandmother who submitted her own genetic testing kit to help more of their own family find them. Ironic! Amelia looks up Sofia Cruz online and discovers she’s the owner of the Cruz Family Farms.  And then when she pulls up the website for the Cruz Family Farms that’s where she sees the first picture of Sofia’s son TJ - Ruby’s father.

To show just how much she loves Ruby (yes, I added in that part), she pulls up the directions to drive out there and it’s only about 20 minutes away. So guess where she heads next!  We see Amelia’s SUV driving up through the same entrance we saw earlier, past the same red barn as well, and she stops next to one of the cabins on the property where TJ happens to be working that day.

By the way, Ruby wondered if he might be clumsy like she is? I love how they had TJ trip on this step to show that yes, yes he is!

It happened to be pouring down rain that day, which I know the producers could not have possibly planned for that scene, but it couldn’t have worked out any better in my opinion. Amelia breaks the news to TJ that he has a daughter and he is wonderfully happy to hear the news. He tells her he would like to meet Ruby and, understandably, she wants to take things slowly. After all, she still hardly knows anything about him other than he plays the guitar and works on his family farm while he looks for work in music. 

Of course she does let the two of them meet each other and the bond is just precious. And do you remember how his mother was over-the-top about planning that birthday party for what would now be Ruby's cousin? Yeah, she’s pretty over-the-top about meeting Ruby and Amelia, too, but in a good way! Amelia freaks out a little bit about Sofia and the big family and how they want her included in everything, but that’s because Amelia’s never had a family of more than 1 person at a time. First her mother, now Ruby. And that’s all she has ever known.

One thing I really liked about Amelia’s character is how well she maintained her composure, even when she found everything and everyone around her so overwhelming. I truly admired her for that. But at the same time I was thinking how bad can it be to be so welcomed with open arms to such an extended family?  Even Sarah Drew agreed with me on Twitter about that! 🙂

And as the story progresses, Ruby is not the only one who grows fonder of TJ. He and Amelia grow closer as well. And later on when they do share a kiss, I looked at the clock and saw that we had about a half an hour to go, so I knew something was going to backfire. And it did. Well, sort of. It was good news but it meant TJ would be gone for a long time, and that’s what’s been scaring Amelia all along. She never wanted Ruby to experience what she did as a child when her own father abandoned her. 

But on the other hand, yes, Amelia was over the top with her reaction. Sometimes I’ll admit Hallmark does that just to intensify the conflict, you know, by making one character blow things up a bit out of proportion. Yeah, Amelia did do that and she ended up hurting Ruby and TJ so they all felt miserable along with her. I think they should have toned down that reaction a little bit. 

But also in true Hallmark fashion, they do work things out at the end. And finally, when Ruby presented her family-tree project to her class, I got a little teary-eyed. 

Well, I don’t often give out perfect 5 out of 5 ratings, but this one is awfully close. I’m choosing to give it 4½ out of 5 just because of the conflict situation near the end that we just talked about.

So what did you think this week? I'm admittedly becoming a fan of Sarah Drew and really do plan to watch Christmas in Vienna as soon as I can. Should I do a review of that one soon? Maybe you’ve noticed I haven’t reviewed any Christmas movies, yet, and we all know Hallmark is most famous for their Christmas movies! I confess I’ve been holding off for a few reasons. One is I just started my channel in January and that seemed like a good time to, well, practice making videos. But also I’m not so sure there’s much of a demand for watching Christmas movies between January and April! 

But can you believe that by the time you see this video it will be May? And that means we’re only two months away from Christmas in July! Whoa!

So, my question for you is would you like me to post a review of a Christmas movie now? I’ve never seen Christmas in Vienna so I’m open to doing a review of it. Please let me know if that’s something you’d like to see in the comments below. 

Well, I think that wraps up my review of Branching Out. Coming up next week we’ll be watching the Hallmark premiere of A Lifelong Love. That’s going to be another week where the movie’s not technically new. It aired last summer on the Hallmark Movies and Mysteries network, but because it’s the first time showing on the Hallmark Channel they’re calling it a premiere. And since I’ve never seen it, it's a premiere for me, too! A week after that we’ll be watching A Whitewater Romance starring Cindy Busby and Ben Hollingsworth. That one is brand new and looks like it could be a lot of fun!

As always, thank you so much for being here and being a part of the Magical Movie Club. We'll be back next week to chat more about our favorite magical movies!  

Hallmark Channel's Original Preview:  Branching Out - Preview

Hallmark Channel Movie Site: Branching Out