Lead with Your Heart (2015) William Baldwin, Kari Matchett, Celeste Desjardins, Kate Drummond, Amy Forsyth, Steven Love Movie Review

Lead with Your Heart (2015)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Kari Matchett and William Baldwin in Lead with Your Heart (2015)

Missing You

Ben (William Baldwin - Be My Valentine) and Maura (Kari Matchett - The Horses of McBride) have been married for a long time and with the kids growing up and about to leave for college their lives sort of runs on autopilot. But it is when the kids leave and Maura's job leads to her heading to the city that they find themselves realising that whilst they still have feelings for each other their relationship has changed over the years and so has what each other wants. It leads to them questioning whether they should do the unimaginable and separate.

Wow, "Lead with Your Heart" has a surprisingly grown up storyline, not something I would ever expect to encounter from a movie shown on the Hallmark Channel and to be honest it threw me for a while. But that actually makes "Lead with Your Heart" an intriguing movie which mixes some traditional Hallmark movie elements with a fresh idea and one which is very real. Okay that doesn't make this a great movie, it has lots of the normal issues which you associate with Hallmark movies but in many ways the grown up theme keeps you on your toes.

So what do I mean? Well I can't think of many movies which deal with a marriage when the nest is empty and suddenly the realisation strikes that a couple have actually drifted apart during those years of being parents and are now more like two people working in a partnership. The thing is that in the real world this situation happens but what is interesting here is that the writers manage to take it a step further so when Maura heads to the city due to work and Ben meets her handsome new colleague he begins to feel insecure about things, causing him to realise that despite their relationship having changed without them noticing he still has deep feelings for his wife. As such "Lead with Your Heart" has many an element which seems typical such as Ben's single friend who might lead him astray but the movie uses them in a non stereotypical manner.

Aside from that, well whilst the acting isn't amazing both William Baldwin and Kari Matchett bring a certain charm to "Lead with Your Heart". As such they deliver the typical humour you find in a Hallmark movie but in the movie's quieter moments as their characters deal with their feelings of being apart they bring out a bit of the character's souls.

What this all boils down to is that "Lead with Your Heart" is an entertaining Hallmark movie which manages to combine the familiar tone of a Hallmark movie but with a storyline which is not entirely typical and has a bit more real life depth to it.


LATEST REVIEWS