October Kiss [2015]

The thing about Hallmark movies is that they are never especially bad in the fun way, but they are never bad in the painful way. Hallmark movies are easy viewing: safe but unremarkable. That is definitely true of our film for tonight, October Kiss. While most people seem to want to fall in love at Christmas time specifically, this sole film is there for the surely notable crossover of Hallmark movie watchers and people who are so into Halloween that they really want their love story to center around it. And while we did have some fears, this movie did not shy away from its Halloween setting. We got a decorating scene, a slow dance to "Spooky," and the titular kiss happens when our mains are dressed as a mermaid and knight respectively. 

The plot centers around the hilariously named Poppy Summerall who clearly fell into this film after her summer Hallmark romance grew cold. Poppy is a 30-something who has managed to not nail down anything resembling a career or financial stability because she is incapable of committing to anything. In the opening montage we see her poorly teaching yoga and having an older student cover for her, quitting a job at a pizza place after her manager hits on her, and then walking away from a date two minutes in when the guy observes that she'd fit in his mom's wedding dress. She lives with her sister, the sister's two kids, and the sister's theoretical husband who never appears. Poppy shows herself to be good with the kids so her sister gets her a nanny gig for a "hot" widowed dad with the intention of making it a set-up as well as trying to get her hands on some damn rent money from her sister (in theory). After a rough first day on the job, she makes a deal with hot dad that she will stay at the job until Halloween. Obviously, she slowly wins over the kids with the fact that she acts like a child herself while hot dad goes on dates with a coworker of his who seems genuinely nice. The whole movie we were waiting for the coworker to turn into a bitch to justify hot dad going for Poppy instead, but she never does. Instead it just seems like the coworker is an allegory for hot dad's neglectful workaholic tendencies while Poppy represents quality family time. In the end, hot dad balks on an important business meeting to spend Halloween with his kids and mack on Poppy, the 30-something child. Reasonable coworker takes a job in Tokyo since she realizes he will never love her. We think she should have her own Hallmark movie about finding love in Japan, but there's no way Hallmark would be progressive enough to have an Asian man as a love interest in anything.

Overall, we got a few laughs but most of our amusement came from mockery. There was one scene we all genuinely liked where Poppy has the kids dress in business attire and give a performance review of their dad's fathering when he comes home from work. I'd respect the hell out of my kids if they did that. We also played Hallmark Bingo using this card. We didn't win, but we made our own after combining elements of that one with some of our own thoughts.

Spoon Rating: 3.5