The Magic of Lemon Drops

I mentioned in the last video that this week would be another movie with a touch of magic. But unlike the last few weeks this one had more of an alternate-reality theme.  It stars Lyndsy Fonseca, who has already made a couple of other similar movies for Hallmark in that they involve some sort of alternate reality which, by the way, are some of my favorites. So, naturally, I was looking forward to this new one but also a little nervous that I might be setting my own expectations too high.  Well, with a great cast, writer and director behind this one, can you blame me? So how did it measure up? Well, as usual, I’ve got a lot to talk about this week so let’s dive right in and get to it!

Hi, I’m Stephanie and this is the Magical Movie Club - where I just love watching and chatting about Hallmark movies. This week’s movie was The Magic of Lemon Drops, starring Lyndsy Fonseca and Ian Harding. The story was based on a book called The Magic of Lemon Drop Pie written by Rachel Linden. But I also want to give credit to Tracey Andreen who wrote the teleplay for the movie. Some of her other works include Switched for Christmas as well as A Kiss For Christmas. Both of which involved a touch of magic and I happened to have enjoyed them both very much! The Magic of Lemon Drops was directed by Maclain Nelson. He also made Branching Out earlier this year, A Heidelberg Holiday last year, as well as both Haul Out the Holly movies with Lacey Chabert!

The Magic of Lemon Drops opens with Lolly and her father working at their family diner, The Eatery, a restaurant that specializes in traditional German food selections. The restaurant was her mom’s dream and her father, who’s also the chef, refuses to change anything about it, including, or shall I say especially, the menu. That frustrates Lolly, who is a big fan of avocado toast and she keeps trying out different ideas like this, but her father will not budge.

Unfortunately, they’ve been struggling in recent years and the bills just keep piling up. Lolly is getting more frustrated while her father is getting more stressed.

Next we meet Rory, a team doctor for a local hockey team. (I’m thinking that’s got to be steady work!) He also has a wonderful little girl. She doesn’t have too much screen time in this one, but she makes a big impact here in this scene. Rory and his wife have recently split up and their daughter is trying to understand it all. She’s about to leave on a trip to Europe with her mother, one that both parents had originally planned to go on together, but now he’s not going and she really wishes he would. This was such a touching scene. He tells her he’s going to go stay with his parents, her grandparents, in Minnesota, back where he grew up.

Isn’t this beautiful? Actually, this one brief scene caught my attention. It shows a quick peek at his Ohio license plate so now we know where he’s been living recently. And we see him stop to glance over at the house across the street before he goes inside his parents’ house.

Back at the restaurant, Lolly’s dad opens the freezer to reveal another one of her recent creations, frozen ice pops, which she makes from her best friend’s fresh greenhouse-grown produce. We meet her friend, Eve, at her produce stand where she tries out Lolly’s popsicles and loves them so much she wants to sell them.

While these two friends are talking, we also learn about Lolly’s dream of owning her own restaurant. She says she would have her own Avocado Paluzza if she could. Eve also brings up the subject of Rory’s return home, which Lolly doesn’t want to talk about. Hmmm, there’s clearly some history here!

Well, Lolly and Rory do meet up over at Eve’s Produce.  Although Hallmark pointed out to me it really isn’t a meet-cute since they already know each other. So does that make it a re-meet-cute?

Rory was out walking with Kirby, his parents’ dog that they’re fostering, and Kirby, the rambunctious dog that he is, knocked Lolly over to the ground when she went to pet him. And then when she stood up again and was face-to-face with Rory, yeah, that was an awkward moment.  

We find out the last time they had a conversation they had a big blow-up and then they broke up. And by now she’s feeling a little embarrassed and frustrated with her life because he became a successful doctor for a professional hockey team and she’s still struggling to keep the family restaurant afloat. 

Well, things are about to change the next day when she’s helping her sister clean out the attic. Of course you can expect to see them take a stroll down memory lane together, where they talk about Lolly’s dreams of opening a chic restaurant called Toast. And Daphne, her sister, tells her of her dream to study overseas to be a Yoga instructor in Bali. But as soon as Daphne tells her she was accepted at that academy Lolly shuts down the idea immediately and tells her all the reasons why she shouldn’t go. Things blow up between them and Daphne storms out. Sounds like maybe that’s how it might have happened all those years ago with Rory!

A moment later her Aunt Gert pops in by surprise - quite literally! She said she saw Daphne storm out and realized things did not go well in there. While Lolly opens up about all of her regrets, and how she wishes she knew then what she knows now, her Aunt Gert asks her an interesting question. “If you were given the chance to peek at the life you wish you had would you take it?”  And she proceeds to tell her all about these special Lemon Drops.

Magic Lemon Drops?! Yes, there are 4 of them, and here’s how they work. You take one before you go to bed. Then don’t just think about something, but actually say out loud something you wish you could go back and change if you could. When you wake up you will live one day as it would have been if you’d made that choice. And then the next morning when you wake up everything will be back to normal just as it is now. But you’ll still remember that special day, well, for the first three drops, that is. The fourth drop is different. And this is where it really gets interesting. If you use the last drop you may return to one of those other lives you just saw, but it will be permanent. And it will now be the only life you’ll remember.

Of course that night she’s trying to read in bed but she can’t stop thinking about those lemon drops sitting in that ornate box over on her nightstand. So, she eats one. 

Her first “regret” or “do-over” so to speak, is TOAST. And when she wakes up she’s in a bedroom she doesn’t recognize and her hair is completely different. Not their finest wig in my opinion, but I won’t dwell on that. In this alternate reality she finds out she now has her dream restaurant, called Toast, someone named India, whom she’s never met before, is her manager, and she's calling to discuss the possibility of the restaurant earning its second Michelin star.

The restaurant really is all that she has ever dreamed of, but there are some drawbacks to this reality. Her sister, Daphne, handles the marketing for her but she’s miserable. And one thing that hasn’t changed is she’s still behind on all the bills! Oh, and Rory shows up with his beautiful girlfriend. It looks like he and Lolly are just good friends, but there is one other interesting change. She finds out her dad is now married to someone named Ramona, who is helping him to recover from a stroke. Lolly is beyond stressed because the restaurant is clearly consuming every minute of her life, and isn’t so sure that this is quite the life she really dreamed of.

Fortunately, she woke up the next morning and all was just as it was before. Only this time she was feeling ever-so-grateful for her family and even apologized to her sister for yelling at her.

And then she ran straight to her Aunt Gert with questions. I thought the best answer she gave was that "the most important part is what you learn from each experience.” And what you do next to find your bliss. Throughout the movie we learn more about just what it means to find your bliss. And that message really spoke to me. Wouldn’t it be great to have an Aunt Gert in our lives?

Meanwhile, let’s not forget about Rory. He’s video chatting with his daughter over in Europe, who loves the dog by the way. And it’s obvious that being away from her is tough on him, too.

And Lolly is telling her friend, Eve, all about her experience with the lemon drops. How do you tell someone about a magical experience like that? Well, Eve doesn’t exactly believe her, but she’s still pretty supportive because if it’s one thing Lolly took away from that reality is that she wants to make things right with Rory. 

They actually have a very good conversation and they open up about what happened all those years ago when he left to go off to Duke for a residency.

So, what about the next lemon drop? Well, that night, she ate another one and this time she thought about her mother. When she woke up in this reality she was a regional manager for a food supply company, though she wasn’t exactly happy about that.

But she does have an amazing day with her mother, who said something that also stood out for me, “History is only helpful if it doesn’t block you from the future.” And we get to see the two of them baking a lemon drop pie together. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. There were some things she had to give up in this reality, too, I just don’t want to give those away.

Her Aunt Gert was excited the next morning, though, to hear all about Lolly’s day with her mother. Apparently they were sisters. And we also learn just a little bit more about Aunt’s Gert’s experience with her own lemon drops.

And I will say, Lolly’s relationship with Rory gets just a little bit better in real life after each of these Lemon Drops experiences.

Later on, in real life, things take a turn for the worse when Lolly’s dad actually has a stroke this time. But Lolly doesn’t know about it just yet, and she takes the third lemon drop to see what her life would be like if she and Rory never broke up.

But just when you think this is the absolutely perfect reality, she finds out that no, there’s a drawback here, too. And this one might be the toughest one of all for her, because to stay here would be purely selfish on her part. And she doesn’t know if she’d be able to live with herself if she did that.

Back in reality again, Lolly finds out about her father’s stroke. And the whole family needs to come together to decide what’s best for the diner and his health. But, it’s true, most of the burden was felt by Lolly. Perhaps because she’s the oldest? 

Lolly is also at the point where she has only one lemon drop left. She has seen all of the other possible realities she can, and it’s decision time. Does she take the last one? And, if so, which life would she choose?

And that’s where I’ll leave this one. At this point I was completely caught up in it all. I can’t tell you how many times I have dreamed about all the what-ifs in my own life. And every time I’ve asked myself what would be the risk if I had taken a different path? Usually, the types of dreams I think about are what if I made choices that would eliminate the painful and some of the worst experiences in my life? You know, the ones you wish would never have happened? But those experiences make us who we are now. And in my own life, I know that if I bypassed the painful years to jump right to the happy parts, maybe I wouldn’t have my boys. And for me, nothing is worth that risk.

But what does Lolly choose? Well, she does find her bliss. But I would highly recommend watching this movie to find out how it all works out. Because this was one of Hallmark’s very best! The characters were wonderful, the story was inspiring, because too often I think we forget about, or take for granted, all the wonderful things we have in our own life right now because we spend too much time wishing we had a different life, or someone else’s life, and it was magical. But it wasn’t campy, and I appreciate that more than you know! Or maybe by now you do.  

I suppose if there’s any one negative that I can think of it’s that I would love to know more about where these lemon drops came from. I know, Aunt Gert said she got them from a fortune teller at a carnival. But for some reason I wanted to know even more. 

It doesn’t really matter, though, because I’m not even going to hesitate giving this one a 5 out of 5. It was that good!

So, what about you? I’m sure not everyone will feel the same way, especially if magic or alternate realities aren’t your thing. And that’s why I appreciate, and I’m sure many will find this statement funny, Hallmark putting a little variety in their stories sometimes. 

Well I think that wraps up my review of The Magic of Lemon Drops. Next week we’ll be watching Head over Heels starring Rebecca Dalton and Olivier Renaud. This one looks like it should be more light-hearted fun with Rebecca Dalton’s character being a shoe designer. We’ll have to see how that one shapes up next week.

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:  The Magic of Lemon Drops - Preview

Hallmark Channel Movie Site: The Magic of Lemon Drops