Nearlyweds (2013)

This Hallmark film starts out brightly when the priest speaks to the camera but once he collapses it rapidly descends downhill.Erin, Casey and Stella all decided on a June wedding so these gals are newlyweds but it seems that the minister who conducted all of their ceremonies passed away before he could sign the marriage certificates. They will have to go through a ceremony again but some of them might have second thoughts after the first few weeks of marriage.Casey gets upset when an ex-girlfriend gets a job working for her new husband. Erin a doctor finds that her mother in law is pushy and resents her for taking her son away. Stella has a rich but domineering husband who does not want her to have a career.The film is derivative, fails poorly as a rom-com. The husbands are so bad you wonder why these ladies married them in the first place.

This Hallmark movie had no characters worth rooting for. All 3 of the husbands were class "A" stupid jerks. All of their better halves could have done so much better considering their beauty, overall niceness, and successful careers. But they still settled for their men with one (thank-God) exception with a minimum of grovelling on their part. Naomi Judd (why do women who aspire to be actresses freeze their faces?) is a truly evil pervert and her husband, oops, son, is so in her thrall and so weak and naive that words fail. She literally almost murders her daughter-in-law, a doctor, by the way, and all is forgiven after a not very believable apology. The solution to their little problem is that the couple pay her to move out of the house she should not have been in to begin with. Stupid girl #2 makes a fool out of herself longing for and stalking a husband who hires as his secretary his ex-high school sweetheart, "his first love," he tells her, who tortured and bullied his new (very cute) wife when they were teenagers. And he has the gall to leave her when she dares to call him on it. Our heroine #3, actually does not take her psychotically controlling male chauvinist future wife abuser back, even though he begs her (quite satisfyingly). She would have been OK had it not been for her devotion to her very irritating dog, causing a modicum of sympathy for the husband. It is hard to enjoy a movie when 5 out of 6 protagonists is worthy of nothing but contempt.

This film has several strong performances from its principles and a generally good chemistry between everyone in the ensemble. It takes common issues related to love, loss, and marriage and posits them in three intersecting story lines, an effective setup for what eventually becomes a light, family oriented morality play.My personal favorites are Danielle Panabaker and Jessica Parker Kennedy, who remain grounded in material that might fly away from lesser actors.This film is sure to play well to its audience, and will spur additional interest amongst country fans for the rare non-musical performance from country staple Naomi Judd.

Good acting, good cinematography, and good direction cannot save a boring screen play. During the first 85 minutes I wondered to myself several times whether it was worth it to continue watching. The only thing that kept me from turning off the TV was a made-up game I created, where I tried to guess the outcome.I did enjoy the interactions between the three almost married couples, and the interactions between the three girl friends.The three things that most detracted from the story were: 1) The dog. 2) The mother-in-law. 3) The ex-girlfriend. As written, these three characters were over-the-top to the point of being painful.