Mom's Coming on Strong
Claire Michaels (Beau Garrett - Freelancers) loves her job as a pastry chef and she loves her mum Helen (Brenda Strong - Ice Sculpture Christmas) but she doesn't have time for any sort of other love in her life. But Helen won't have it and is constantly trying to set her daughter up with a prospective husband whilst also dealing with the fact that her own husband, Sam (Garwin Sanford - Independence Daysaster), wants them to retire and spend some time in Italy. In order to find Claire a prospective husband Helen decides to set up a fake profile on a dating website, which how she meets Eric (Benjamin Ayres - 12 Dates of Christmas) a doctor who starts dating Claire. But trouble arises as having promised to keep Helen's involvement a secret it inevitably comes out with Claire being less than happy.
I am kind of at a loss for words because "Love by Chance" is such a basic Hallmark movie I am kind of surprised it was made. What I mean by that is the set up is a meddling mum arranges for her daughter to meet a dishy doctor and she asks the doctor to keep her involvement a secret. It of course screams that when the daughter learns that her mother not only broke a promise and arranged the meet cute but her handsome boyfriend hid the truth from her she will call things off even if she is in love. I wish I could say there is more to "Love by Chance" than this but subplots surrounding the mother retiring adds little to the movie other than more predictable confusion comedy when a friend of her husband's spots her with the doctor in the park.
What this means is that "Love by Chance" is another Hallmark movie which relies on some other basics so we have a beautiful pastry chef, so we have the food aspect, a handsome doctor who is good with kids, so have the perfect man part. And on top of that we have the likeable Brenda Strong in the meddling mom role and Strong has an air around her which makes her such a great mother figure with a mix of maternal with glamour which just works.
What this all boils down to is that "Love by Chance" is a basic Hallmark movie with a very obvious storyline which you can spot how it will play out long before it does. But it makes it easy to watch and with the appealing nature of the cast and characters it is an entertaining, but not overly memorable, distraction.
