Movie Review: Buried Past - A Family History Mystery

Stars: 5 out of 5

Pros: Good mystery, great characters

Cons: Small doses of Hallmark cheese

The Bottom Line:

Is dad still alive?

Sophie races to find out

Enjoyable film

Racing to Find the Secret in Friends’ Family

The new year has started, and that means Hallmark is premiering new mystery movies again.  The first movie out in 2023 is also the first in a potential new franchise for the channel, the Family History Mysteries.  Considering most of their mystery movie franchises have ended, I’m anxious for them to find some good new ones.  With Buried Past, this series is off to a strong start.

Sophie McClure (Janel Parrish) is a Forensic Genealogist in Buffalo, New York.  That’s a fancy way of saying that she helps others track down long lost members of their family.  She is extremely good at it, and she loves what she does.

Which is why, when her best friends have a problem, they come to her.  Jonathan (Morgan David Jones) has had his leukemia relapse.  His relatives, including his twin Jackson (Niall Matter) are all getting tested to see if they are a bone marrow match.  But in trying to get everyone possible to be a match, their mother shares a secret.  Jonathan and Jackson have long known that their biological father died in an accident before they were born.  But his body was never found, and their mother thinks their father might be alive.

Naturally, Sophie jumps at a chance to help out her friends.  But can she find a man no one has heard from in decades?

Naturally, this story comes with lots of family drama.  It’s different family drama than I would normally expect in a murder mystery, but it fit the story well.  And, I really liked the characters, so I was invested in that from the very beginning.

Since we are trying to track down a missing person, this story unfolds differently from the typical Hallmark mystery movies or the mystery books I read.  And that’s a good thing.  It was nice to watch something different.  The plot was completely engaging, and I was along for every twist while waiting impatiently to see how it would turn out.

It helped that I fell completely in love with the characters right away.  Sophie is warm and welcoming, and you immediately feel her connection to Jonathan and Jackson.  You want to root for a happy ending to this story.

That is helped by the acting.  This is definitely one of the stronger Hallmark movies in that regard.  There are a couple of small doses of Hallmark cheese, but only someone not used to Hallmark movies will even notice them.  It helps that the writing is good.

This movie is “based on” a series of books written by Brynn Bonner.  I’ve never read them, although they were already on my radar.  Based on the book descriptions I read after watching this movie, I feel like all they kept were the characters names and what Sophie does for a living.  Still, since I haven’t read the books, I could be missing something.

My biggest concern watching this movie is that some of the characters I connected without are going to be one off characters going forward.  Okay, so one of them is clearly the love interest, so that might keep the rest of the cast around as background players.  I hope so since I really liked them.

I certainly hope this is the beginning of a new franchise for Hallmark.  Buried Past was a great mystery movie I enjoyed from start to finish.  If you enjoy their mystery movies, make sure you watch it.