Main cast: Melanie Stone (Ellie), Casey Elliott (Jordan), Jarlyn Hales (Regina), Whitney Harris (Cynthia), and Brian Krause (Neal)
Director: Brian Brough
Retreat to Paradise is, shockingly enough, not a Hallmark film, although it could very well be. Even the movie poster looks like the cheap romance novel cover put out by mainstay publishers these days, and Hallmark is churning out movie adaptations of contemporary romances like they had eaten too much chili and beans the night before, and the world is their toilet bowl.
The plot, in fact, is something straight out of a romance novel—in fact, it’s a plot that has been done many times before, and I’m shocked again to discover that the script is not based off some romance novel.
Ellie is a physical therapist hired by coach Neal to help get tennis player Jordan back in shape. Jordan is brooding in Fiji, and as expected, is a complete jerk to Ellie. Sure, there are moments when he’s pleasant, mostly because he’s horny, but this show is basically a montage or Jordan constantly being an ass to her one way or the another. He refuses to listen to Ellie and injures himself, so he naturally blames Ellie and is horrid to her as a result. He listens to his PR agent and believes all the lies she tells him about Ellie, so once again he is horrid to her. By the time our hero grovels to the heroine, again, about what an ass he had been for who knows how many times, she still takes him back because Ellie has a weird case of terminal perkiness and understanding that can be disconcerting to watch.
The best part is that this so-called romance and cycle of asshole behavior of Jordan happen over a few days. I can’t imagine how painful it must be, therefore, to live with this asshole of a so-called hero for a month.
The plot aside, the acting is abysmal. Melanie Stone utters her lines like they are dough and she is pounding them hard to make the flattest pancakes possible. Casey Elliott’s delivery of his lines and his overall acting are pure concrete block realness. A quick check of the cast’s CV on IMDB reveals that they are for the most part trapped in that hell where Hallmark movies are played to torture the souls there, and I can see why. As for Brian Krause, well, he’s probably given up.
I can’t think of any reason why one should watch this thing, unless, like me, they stumble upon it on cable and can’t look away from the awfulness of it all. Take the title of this movie as a warning: retreat indeed to paradise, away from this thing because it is truly the pits.
