Junebug - Hallmark

It’s August, which means Hallmark Channel is taking a 180 from all the Christmas movies by kicking off its Summer Nights series, starting with the premiere of Junebug. Autumn Reeser is one of my favorite Hallmark stars so she sets the bar pretty high in my opinion. How was it? Well, I’ve got a lot of things to talk about so let’s dive right in and get to it!

Hi, I’m Stephanie and this is the Magical Movie Club - a place to come and chat about my favorite, and maybe not-so-favorite, Hallmark movies. On August 3rd we watched Junebug, starring Autumn Reeser and Aaron O’Connell. David Weaver directed this one, and to give you some context about his work, he also directed Christmas Town, A Christmas to Remember, and more recently Operation Nutcracker, along with Love & Jane, okay maybe not one of his finest, but he has made some really good ones!

Let’s start with Autumn Reeser, shall we? She is definitely one of Hallmark’s best. I loved her in the Wedding Veil series, and there’s even an older one called A Country Wedding which is great. I’ve already talked about Christmas Under the Stars, which is another one she made with Jesse Metcalfe, A Glenbrooke Christmas isn’t bad, and there’s still another one on my Christmas list I haven’t even gotten to, yet, this year. Speaking of A Glenbrooke Christmas, that one also stars Antonio Cupo and I just happened to catch his name as an executive producer, along with Autumn Reeser, in the opening credits this week.

This past Saturday we watched Junebug. The movie opens with a flashback. Little 8-year-old Juniper, whose parents call her Junebug, is celebrating her birthday. Her parents give her a carved, wooden box for her to create her own unique time capsule. And what she chooses to put inside are not physical objects, but three wishes inspired by her favorite book, The Princess Werewolf.

Fast forward to today and we see Juniper is now played by Autumn Reeser and she’s waking up to her alarm in Seattle getting ready to start her day. She drives to work in a bright red convertible VW Bug.

But along the way she stops at her favorite coffee shop, Aurora Roasters, and picks up her usual order. Micah, behind the counter, greets her with her Americano all ready to go. Except Micah accidentally handed her the wrong drink. Juniper takes one sip of a Caramel Latte and realizes it must belong to the man who had just picked up a drink in front of her. It’s a pretty brief, albeit one of the more polite meet-cutes I’ve ever seen from Hallmark.

Although they still haven’t figured out that it’s blatantly obvious they’re all holding empty cups. That seems like such an easy fix to me, but I’ll continue. 

By the time she gets to work and sits down at her computer, a long list of meetings scheduled for the day pops up on her calendar. And it looks like she’s already running late for the first one.

In this meeting we learn that she works for a small publishing firm that is looking to expand their presence in the area of young picture books. Specifically, her boss mentions the key to this success is in finding an amazing new illustrator. And she challenges all the staff to be on the lookout for the next great artist.

That afternoon her parents come over and they bring her the wish box we saw in the opening scenes. Juniper hardly even remembers it, but her parents said they thought it would be fun to open again now that she’s about to turn 40. Although Juniper thinks it’s silly and impractical. Her mom tells her it’s a chance for her to reconnect with the dreams she had when she was a young girl, which she’s not particularly thrilled about.

Well, later she meets her boyfriend, Ethan, for dinner and it’s pretty obvious they’ve been together a long time now - they’re really pretty boring. They have a very regular routine and he’s not at all comfortable veering away from that, even in the slightest.  By the way, did you notice the waiter here? A little cameo appearance by Antonio Cupo?!! How fun was that?!

Well, back to Ethan. He’s also not very good at picking out birthday presents and tells her he’s getting her a pen. After all, every good editor needs a nice pen, right? But I have to interject here. A moment ago Juniper asked her parents why they didn't get her something more practical, like a blender, and now her boyfriend does get her something practical and she’s still not happy. I’m just saying - I don’t think SHE even knows what she wants!

So, after a disappointing evening she invites her best friend over, they open up a bottle of pinot and watch her favorite movie, Say Anything. And for a moment she pauses the movie to ask her best friend, “Where’s the guy in my life holding up a boombox to serenade me?”

By the time she’s ready for bed she pulls out the wish box, opens it up, and begins to read each of the wishes she wrote in there all those years ago.

And just when she closes her eyes and sinks her head into her pillow for the night, a young girl appears and starts bouncing on her bed! She explains to Juniper that, "I'm you, and you're me!"

And no, Juniper is not buying any of it. As a matter of fact, she’s beginning to believe her mother must have something to do with this. Well, she gets the young version of herself to leave for the night but sure enough, by morning she’s back. And she has a lot of opinions about everything, including her wardrobe, which she says is BORING!

After arguing some more Juniper calls her best friend over to see if she can see this little version of herself. Nope, apparently not.

And then again, while driving to work, little Juniper pops up in the car and makes an impressive observation about her life as an editor.  And that right there pretty much sums up the premise of the rest of the movie.

What did happen to her dreams of becoming a writer? And is it too late to still want that life at 40 or believe that it’s even still possible now? I don’t know about you, but this certainly struck a chord with me.

Well, this has rattled Juniper a bit, and even her favorite clerk at the coffee shop noticed. While she drank her coffee she walked past a big paint setup where a colorful mural was being painted. Naturally, young Juniper appeared because she wanted a closer look at it and that’s when she bumped into a ladder spilling the paint, and it dripped all down the entire wall, completely covering up the mural.

Fortunately for her the artist, who recognized her by the way from the coffee mix-up the previous day, was extremely understanding and said it was a sign. Apparently, he wasn’t happy with it anyway so he said this gave him an excuse to start over. 

She still wanted to make it up to him and told him about how her company, Little Light Publishing, is looking for new illustrators. Apparently, he was not interested. Incidentally, he was very intentional in avoiding telling her his name.

After she got back to the office she tried to look him up on the internet and her coworker recognized him right away as Alex Ripley. She said he was an aspiring artist who had one particularly bad show where the critics were so harsh he walked out, and pretty much hasn’t been seen since.

So, Juniper has a challenge. Her child self wants her to continue pursuing this Alex Ripley muralist, while her boss thinks she’s crazy for pursuing someone who isn’t even interested in the job.

Well, Juniper goes back out there and her inner child convinces her to keep trying. Finally, she convinces this artist to give her one hour of his time. And in that hour she takes him to the library to show him how amazing children’s books can be and how he has an opportunity to make a real impact on their lives.

What's kind of fun is while she continues to try to convince him to be an illustrator, he turns it around and tries to convince her to finish writing her stories.

The rest of the movie tells about their journey to work toward these dreams together. And that includes Juniper breaking up with Ethan, who was surprisingly understanding about it.

Juniper and Alex present their plan to her boss, who is at least interested in learning more, but the pressure was on. They had some ups and downs. And they took a little road trip to try to tap into some inspiration.

Oh, and the movie is full of references to Juniper’s favorite movie, Say Anything. I’ve never seen it, but I don’t think I necessarily had to to appreciate the references.

By the end not everything went according to their plan and Alex was super quick to give up again. But by this time Juniper was no longer afraid of changes and new challenges.

So what did I think of this one? The character growth was right up my alley, and I love pretty much everything Autumn Reeser makes. At the beginning, she was stuck in a routine and not really going anywhere and she stopped dreaming of anything different. Then her parents reminded her of her childhood dreams which got her thinking. And then she ran into Alex who wasn’t afraid to dream, but he was afraid to put himself out there. And together they brought out the very best in one another and challenged each other to face their adult fears.

Those are all the things I loved about this movie. But, I know, I didn’t want there to be a “but" either, but I’ve been struggling with myself trying to understand why I kept yawning and letting myself get distracted every time I watched it. I have nothing negative to say about any of the characters or the actors who portrayed them. Little 8-year-old Junebug was adorable. Feisty, but cute. Juniper’s best friend was so sweet and supportive. Her parents were annoyingly cute, and I think that’s exactly how they were meant to be. Her boss seemed quite reasonable even though I didn’t always agree with her. And even Micah, the clerk at the coffee shop, always had Juniper’s back. 

So what’s holding me back this time? I don’t know other than it just didn’t capture my attention. Maybe the plot was too slow? Maybe the characters, other than perhaps the little girl and her parents, just didn’t have enough personality to be memorable. I was even struggling to come up with a cute or funny scene to put for my end screen on my video. I suppose I wouldn't mind having it on in the background when it airs again, but I wouldn’t sit down and watch it. Sadly, I couldn’t even sit down and watch it in one sitting when I tried. 

It’s weird, I want to give this a higher rating because there was even a touch of magic not only in the beginning, but at the very end, too. But I will go ahead and give this a 4 because really, the message was spot on for why I love Hallmark movies. 

So how about you? I think, from some of the reviews I’ve seen, more people love this movie than I did. And I hope that’s okay with you that we’re not always going to feel the same way about these movies.

Well I think that wraps up my review of Junebug. Next up we’ll be talking about My Dreams of You. I have no idea what to expect from this one which, honestly, I think is for the best. I’ll also be on Twitter again Saturday night for some more live fun while the movie premieres!

Until then, and 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:  Junebug - Preview

Hallmark Channel Movie Site: Junebug