Sadly for Worse
After struggling with the death of her husband, Wendy (Lisa Whelchel - Falling for Christmas) returns to working at the wedding planning business with the help of Roseanne (Kim Fields - Wrapped Up In Christmas), her friend and co-worker. But there are dark shadows forming as Marco (Antonio Cupo - Love at the Thanksgiving Day Parade), a divorce atorney, has set up his business right next door to Wendy and the last thing she wants is those thinking about marriage then seeing a divorce service next door. But despite their differences Marco and Wendy are going to have to find a way to get along when Wendy's son, Collin (Eddie McRae), and Marco's daughter, Sophia (Alicia Josipovic), return home from college and announce they have got engaged. But maybe having to work with the confident Marco will have some strange side effects as she begins to question whether shutting herself off to love is the right thing to do.
Predictable, slim on story, corny, wooden acting, phoney, cheesy and painful are all things you will frequently found written about TV movies, and I know I have employed some of those words in a few of my reviews but I don't believe just because a movie is made for TV automatically makes it bad. Unfortunately when you find yourself watching a movie like "For Better or for Worse" trying to defend it against that sort of criticism is almost a mission impossible because it is every single one of them.
As such "For Better or for Worse" is right from the word go predictable; the minute Marco opens up his divorce service next to Wendy's wedding planning business you know there is going to be bickering and antagonism till eventually they realise that maybe they actually like each other. Predictable is also the fact that Wendy and Marco try to work together to prevent their children from getting married but of course don't even see eye to eye on how to do it. And to accompany this there is plenty of in your face comedy, from nervous bridegrooms stuttering on every word to meet cute banging of heads when Wendy and Marco bend down to pick up some dropped money. I could go on but it is pretty pointless as every second of "For Better or for Worse" is generic and that includes the text book performances from Antonio Cupo and Lisa Whelchel.
What this all boils down to is that "For Better or for Worse" ticked all the boxes when it comes to being a Hallmark romantic comedy but unfortunately all the boxes not only includes the right ones but also the wrong ones. Unfortunately it is those wrong ones which out weigh the good ones leaving "For Better or for Worse" a lower than average TV movie.
