Return to Office

You’ve Got Mail is one of my all-time favorite movies. Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan were so good together in that one, I still get goosebumps every time I watch it. Plus the supporting characters were equally wonderful.  So, why do I bring this up? Because the Hallmark movie premiere on February 15th had a lot in common with it. I can remember You’ve Got Mail came out when email was brand new to all of us. Even the opening scenes show us dial-up internet to connect with AOL. That seems like forever ago, doesn’t it?  Well, what’s funny about Return to Office, is this one starts off with two people writing messages to each other on sticky notes. Does anyone still use physical sticky notes anymore?  Anyway, how did this movie hold up? Sorry about that. Well, as you can see we’ve got a lot to talk about so let’s dive right in and get started. 

Hi, I’m Stephanie and welcome to the Magical Movie Club. This week on Hallmark Channel we watched Return to Office starring Janel Parrish and Scott Michael Foster.

You might remember Janel Parrish from a couple of movies last year, including Haunted Wedding and Sugarplummed. It’s been awhile since we’ve seen Scott Michael Foster on Hallmark. He was in The Key of Love a few years back with Laura Osnes. But I remember him most as Kristoff from the TV series Once Upon a Time.

Okay, so, the movie opens in the morning with Liv, played by Janell Parish, waking up very cheerfully for a workday in my opinion, following a regimented routine with her matcha and breakfast cereal to start her day. She also has a video conference to start things off, where she shows up wearing her slippers and pajama bottoms like we all do, right? Or do we?!

Now, right before her meeting starts she gets a call from her best friend. It’s during this conversation where we find out more about what kind of work she does. She is the Director of Corporate Strategy at a company called Omega Technologies and she’s expecting to get a VP promotion this week. But Omega just acquired a new social media start-up company, called Artist Access, which will undoubtedly delay things a bit. To top it off, she feels the brunt of a lot of other responsibilities suddenly falling on her while her boss shifts all of his focus to this new acquisition. And all the while, mind you, she’s still awfully cheerful about it. 

And then we meet Scott Michael Foster’s character, Tom, who’s a little less organized and he’s running late for the meeting. He came over as part of the new acquisition as the head designer. Within maybe 10 seconds after he joins the meeting we see Liv interrupting Tom to schmooze Walter, the CEO. That happens a lot over the course of the movie where not only does she interrupt Walter, but Walter interrupts Liv just as much.

Anyway, the real story starts with what happens next, when Walter, the CEO, dropped the bombshell announcement that starting Monday he's expecting everyone to return to working back at the office.

It wasn’t full-time back in the office, though, and that’s why this story works. You see, the company didn’t even have enough desks to accommodate everyone. So they split their time between Monday-Wednesday and Tuesday-Thursday shifts, which means they had to share desks, like we saw from the previews.

Now, for what it’s worth, here’s my two cents on what just happened. I read one review that mentioned it was unrealistic for a director of a company to be given a desk like this and not an office. Believe it or not, I was just as surprised when the company I work for was in an office full-time to see the directors and even the CEO sitting at desks among all of us, too. That was also addressed briefly in the movie when Liv mentioned the CEO wanted her to sit among everyone to get a pulse on the office. For me, though, it was the blender in the kitchen right out in the open that wasn’t right. I mean can you imagine being on a call when that thing goes off right next to you? Now that seemed unprofessional.

But let’s continue. At the end of her first day back, Liv put all of her own things away with one exception. She wanted to leave her little succulent plant out on the desk so that it would get enough light. That’s what prompted her to write the first sticky note to the mystery person who would be sitting there the next day.

Well, the mystery person is Tom. And yes, the two clashed at first. He’s more of a slob and she’s OCD about everything being just right. There was wadded up paper everywhere and he decorated the desk with all of his own artwork. I can't imagine why there wasn’t a cleaning service who would have at least emptied the trash overnight. I don’t know, maybe that’s not such a common thing anymore? Anyway, she put away ALL of it, including the artwork.

They traded barbs for awhile all the way up until he left a half-eaten sandwich in the drawer over the weekend for her to find on Monday morning. That had to be gross!  So he apologized with a fancy chocolate pastry and that’s all it took to change her opinion of him. Clearly, buying a sweet treat changes everything!

Well, after a few more notes back and forth they both started to look forward to them every day. Just like in You’ve Got Mail. But just think, these two were leaving each other only two notes a week. And they insisted on keeping their anonymity. I will say, though, that the content of the notes was not super personal. I mean they laughed at things like having to adjust the chair every day. She also mentions she likes listening to baroque music to help her relax. Things like that.

Now, to spice things up a little, one day the boss called everyone into the office for a meeting on the same day. He mentioned it was at the end of the day, so that’s got to be why the two didn’t sit down, or at least put their things down, at the same desk together. It was at this meeting where the boss blindsided everyone by putting Liv in charge of rebranding Tom’s company. The two of them met later on to go over their strategy and I think maybe they both started to appreciate the fact that the boss wasn’t really interested in listening to either of them.

I mean we know Tom made the wrong impression on him when he was casually asked about his vision for the company. Tom hemmed and hawed and said he hadn't thought about anything, yet. But I’m thinking even if Tom had given a brilliant answer the boss would have swept him aside anyway because that was just the way he did things.

Clearly, neither one of them felt all that appreciated at this company, even though the HR guy did everything he could to build some comradery in the office. I’ll tell you about that in a moment. Tom scored some big points with her when, as Mr. Tuesday, he bought her some noise-canceling headphones to mute out the blender noises!

So, about HR. This guy was pretty spot-on for the role. He’s very peppy, always positive, and in that vein, he planned out this whole team-building experience for everyone in the office. Naturally, Liv and Tom were partnered together. I have to admit, though, the games looked kind of fun. I was thinking that had this been a Christmas movie, this is where they would have done something fun together like baking cookies, building a snowman, ice-skating, something like that which we’ve seen many times. But since this is a non-seasonal movie, these games were a little different and fun. And it worked. Liv and Tom began to like each other in person while still not knowing their secret identities.

Over the course of the movie, their post-it-notes became text messages so they were able to communicate more frequently, anytime and anywhere. Like when Tom was at home working and needed some inspiration for this new brand design.  It just turned out to be too bad the CEO was so disagreeable.

After awhile, they finally decide to go out on a date. But then, before the date even happened, Liv figured out who he was from talking to his mother and her friend at the senior home where she volunteers. Those two ladies were so cute!

So she couldn’t go through with the date after all. I mean she shows up, but she’s not honest with him about why she’s there. Not that he makes it easy for her to come clean about it.  Yeah, they bickered some more.

By the end of the movie you might expect to see Tom get all upset when he finds out who she is and storm off, never wanting to see her again, only to change his mind the next morning and everyone lives happily ever after. After all, that’s how a lot of Hallmark movies end, right? Well, that’s not exactly what happened this time.  No, the big conflict near the end actually happens with Walter, the CEO, and this puts Liv in a difficult situation. He fires Tom! So what does Liv do? I'll leave that for you to find out.

By the very end I loved how we were kept somewhat in suspense as to how Tom would really handle finding out who Ms. Monday was. Kind of like in You’ve Got Mail when we didn’t know how Meg Ryan’s character would react to seeing Tom Hanks show up in that flower garden at the very end. They even showed us these cute sticky notes in the restaurant, …a tribute to how it all started, directing Tom to where to find her. 

Believe it or not, the first time I watched it I didn’t feel the magic. Which really surprised me because overall it wasn't a bad movie. But then get this: When I was finishing up writing this review, I rewatched the ending, which I typically do, and that’s when I felt the goosebumps. It was really something and I went back and re-wrote parts of my review because of it.

As I write this, the current rating on IMDB is a 6.8 and this time, I completely agree with that. We’re not always in sync, but after the re-watch, I enjoyed it very much. Particularly, because it wasn’t just one character who had the big transformation. Liv and Tom started out as complete opposites. And over the course of the movie they both learned to appreciate one another and that led to some deeper feelings by the end. 

Not to mention, I always love a good cameo by another Hallmark star! So what did you think? Would you watch it again? 

Well, I think that wraps up my review of Return to Office. Next up we’ll be discussing Hallmark’s Sisterhood, Inc. starring Rachael Leigh Cook, Daniella Monet and Leonidas Gulaptis. Rachael Leigh Cook has made quite a few movies for Hallmark, but if I had to guess I’d say her biggest one is probably Rescuing Christmas. 

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:  Return to Office - Preview

Hallmark Channel Movie Site: Return to Office