“Nelly’s Got a Knack for Advice.”
Hallmark is giving us plenty of mystery movies recently, but they seem more focused on creating potential new franchises than on giving us second movies with characters we’ve already met (with the next movie to premier being a notable exception). We got to meet another new batch of characters with A Fatal Engagement, the first Nelly Knows Mysteries movie.
Nelly (Pascale Hutton) is the advice columnist in her small town. In fact, the town is so small that just about everyone knows everyone, so even though the letters she gets are anonymous, she can often figure out who is sending them in. This particular morning, she’s gotten a letter from someone who thinks her boyfriend is cheating on her. Thanks to the hand writing, Nelly identifies the letter writer as her friend Dahlia (Sarah Grey). Instead of penning a response in her column, Nelly sets out to talk to Dahlia’s boyfriend Blake (Julian Haig).
Only, when she arrives at Blake’s, she finds him dead. While the new detective in town, Michael Hogan (Kavan Smith) wants nothing to do with Nelly’s help (or interference, depending on who you ask), Sheriff Brahm (Andrea Reindl) insists that he accept Nelly’s help. Can the two of them figure out what happened?
There seems to be a couple trends with some of the recent Hallmark movies. The first is the amateur detective getting official sanction to be part of the investigation from a higher up in the police department. Now, I get that none of these movies, or the cozy mysteries I read, are remotely realistic. And the main character would get in trouble for their actions in even the more realistic stories. But this stretches things too far even for me. Let’s at least pretend that the police aren’t encouraging them to sit in on interviews and gather clues.
The other trend I’m seeing is the attempts at humor. Now, I love a good comedy, and I read plenty of comedic mysteries (both of the books I’m reviewing this week, for example). However, the comedy mostly fell flat for me in this movie. It seemed to rely on characters acting over the top to exaggerated effect. I will give the movie a few lines that were actually funny, but the rest could have been toned down.
I’m not blaming the actors for this since it was clearly a directorial choice. The acting was fine for a Hallmark movie, overall.
And this isn’t to say I disliked the movie. The characters were charming and I enjoyed meeting them. I’d certainly enjoy spending more time with them.
The mystery was decent as well. I didn’t figure out where it was going until the end, with some nice surprises revealed along the way to the logical climax.
Will I watch another Nelly Knows Mysteries movie? Yes, I’d give the franchise another chance. I just hope the attempts to create comedy is toned down from where it was in A Fatal Engagement.
I agree with your comments. I had a hard time buying into Nelly's approved involvement and I also thought the attempts at comedy were too over-the-top. Since the mystery itself was pretty good, though, I gave it 4/5 stars. I'll watch another one if they make a second one, but I do hope the attempts at comedy are toned down next time. :)
ReplyDeleteOh wow your review is so spot on! I thought all of those things. I love When Calls the Heart and these actors so I'd probably watch anything with them. But yes, overplayed for comedy, and yes, give us some series movies instead of creating so many new ones! Couldn't agree more. Thanks for the honest review. It was a cute movie though :)
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