Country at Heart

Vintage: Hallmark, 2020

Hallmark approved summary: A struggling country singer meets a Nashville songwriter in need of inspiration. Teaming up to write a song, their work gets complicated but results in both a hit song...and true love.

Actual summary: This one has an soundtrack. Like, you could buy it, with money.

Cast member prestige: There’s not a lot to say about our two main dudes, other than the fact that I went into this movie thinking Lucas Bryant must be an actual country singer. Not because of his pipes, but because his name is Lucas Bryant. Our lead actress, Jessy Schram, started out as, according to IMDB, “one of Chicago’s most successful child models,” before going on to have roles in Once Upon a Time and Chicago Med.

Hallmark Man does Hallmark Job: We get two Hallmark Men for the price of one! Grady is a Nashville-based songwriter whose career has stalled, while Duke is a successful country music star whose creativity is being stifled by the demands of his record company. The film would like us to believe that these are two separate men. I am not convinced.

Action:

We open with stock footage of Nashville. Our heroine Shayna is auditioning to be a backup singer for country star Duke Sterling. She performs in front of a couple of record company guys, neither of whom treat her with much respect; one of them even answers a phone call while Shayna is singing. She leaves, dejected, and calls home to her dad. Dad is sympathetic and tells Shayla that Nashville’s loss is his gain, encouraging her to come home for the annual Silverado Fall Music Festival he hosts on their family’s rural Tennessee ranch. Headlining the festival this year? Why, Duke Sterling of course. Shayna says she’ll be there.

Meanwhile, back at the record company offices, a songwriter named Grady is sitting with a company suit, waiting for Duke Sterling to show up for a meeting. The record company wants Grady to write a new song for Duke to perform, because both men “need a hit.” When Duke arrives, it becomes clear quite quickly that Duke and Grady have history together. Neither is happy to hear about the record company’s proposal. Company suit asks Grady to head out to the Silverado Fall Music Festival, where Duke will be headlining, to seek out inspiration for their collaboration.

Hey, Shayna’s home! Dad’s elated to see her. So is Shayna’s best friend, a club owner who asks Shayna to give an impromptu show that evening. She says ok. Fast forward to that evening: Shayna is enjoying a pre-show drink at the club when who should show up but Grady, our songwriter in search of a muse. Grady heads straight to the bar and places an order with the bartender for “a little inspiration.” Rather than rolling his eyes to the back of his head and booting Grady back out onto the street, this Tennessee bartender chuckles and says, “Oh, that was last week’s special.” Yikes, man. Shayna takes the stage and launches into one of her old numbers, called “Big Deal in a Small Town.” I’M NOT SURE I GET IT, HALLMARK.

Shayna’s singing is...utterly average. But of course Grady turns to the bartender and pronounces, wide-eyed, “She’s great!” Later, Grady finds Shayna and tells her, “I think you’re really talented. Maybe we could try to write a song together.” He hands her his business card. Shayna thinks he’s just giving her a line, but when she looks at the business card she notices that Grady works for the same record label as, gasp, Duke Sterling!

Speak of the devil: Duke Sterling and Grady have a little meeting on Duke’s tour bus, which is parked outside of the music festival grounds. Duke’s trailer is [ridiculously, improbably] decorated with actual printed snapshots of himself on stage at earlier points in his career. Duke and Grady reminisce about “the old days,” which quickly turns into an argument based on an as-of-yet unnamed grudge that Grady is holding on to. The two men decide that there is no way they will be able to collaborate on a new song; Grady’s resentful of having to write for Duke, and Duke’s resentful that his record label doesn’t trust him to make his own creative decisions. Instead, Grady will just come up with something on his own, send it Duke’s way, and Duke can decide to either sing it or not.

Shayna looks Grady up online and finds that he is “totally legit.” She calls him and invites him to come to the ranch to talk songwriting. Grady admits that he has hit a wall in his career, that he’s been tasked with writing a new song for Duke Sterling, and that he needs Shayna’s “fresh way of looking at things” to help him do this. Shayna agrees. They spend some time getting to know each other, Grady looking through some of Shayna’s music and declaring her melodies great but her lyrics in need of more personal touches. “The best songs come from experience,” he says, immediately before telling Shayna that his most recent composition was a love song about his truck.

That night, Shayna’s performing at her friend’s club again. While on stage, she invites Grady to come up and “sing harmony.” So up Grady clambers, and they begin singing “Big Deal in a Small Town”... IN UNISON. Like, we’re talking the entire song. In unison. Like a damn Unitarian choir.

Just then, Duke Sterling arrives on the scene. The crowd notices Duke’s arrival and immediately stops paying attention to the stage. Grady and Shayna stop their set, and Grady introduces Shayna to Duke. Shayna fangirls; Grady glowers.

The next day, Grady and Shayna are hanging out at the ranch, playing around with song lyrics and talking about love, as you do. Shayna is, for some reason, baking a bunch of identical pumpkin pies while they work, and when she offers Grady a taste, he takes a fork to the CENTER OF A PIE like an animal and she giggles, because what is life. Grady wants Shayna to visualize what falling in love should be like, you know, in service of the songwriting, and she says something completely uninspiring, and he turns it into boring lyrics, and they are both thrilled at their collective genius.

Then, for some reason, Duke shows up, asking for a tour of the ranch since he’ll be headlining the festival there in a couple of days. For the 45th time since this film began, Grady gets sourpuss. Shayna walks Duke through the festival grounds, making conversation by asking Duke how he and Grady know each other. Duke hems and haws about how he and Grady used to write and play music together. When Shayna goes on to gush over a particular early song of Duke’s, asking how he came up with such powerful lyrics, Duke deflects with a convincing: “Who knows where lyrics come from?” I WONDER IF THIS IS SIGNIFICANT.

Moved by Shayna’s spirit (and surely remembering her magnificent Gregorian chanting at the club the other night), Duke asks her to perform with him on the mainstage at the music festival. She is thrilled.

Shayna and Grady work on their song some more. Grady deflects questions about his beef with Duke some more. Grady calls his boss at the record company and tells him that he should come hear Shayna sing, assuring him that she “really IS that good.” Ok.

Shayna’s at her friend’s club AGAIN, and Duke is there AGAIN, and also Grady is there AGAIN, and some Open Mic Warrior invites Duke to come up and perform. He says he’ll do it, but only if Shayna comes up too. They sing (actually harmonizing this time, thank God) while Grady -- you’ll never guess -- sits there pouting. Eventually he storms out and Shayna follows, asking him to tell her what’s going on. Finally, Grady spills it: the song Duke and Shayna just sang up there, Duke’s first and biggest hit? Was actually written by Grady. Duke stole it and claimed it was written by him. “You can’t trust him,” Grady sulks. Shayna doesn’t know what to think.

The next morning, Shayna runs into Duke on the festival grounds and asks him for his side of the story. Duke says, basically: the record company made me do it! It was claim the song as his own, or hit the road! He tried, over the years, to apologize to Grady, but, he sighs, “sometimes you have to choose between your career and the people you care about. Sometimes, it’s sad to say, career wins.”

Oh Duke. You must be new to this franchise.

It’s music festival time! Shayna has to go do sound-check with Duke, but she’s worried -- she still needs time to meet up with Grady and polish up some last minute details on their song so that Duke can perform it that evening. The sound check drags on and on and finally Shayna just bails and runs off to find Grady. They finish up their magnum opus and Grady says he will get the changes to Duke and the band so they can perform it that night. “You and Duke need to sing this as a duet,” he frown-faces. Shayna protests, “No! Iif I’m gonna sing this with anyone, it should be with you.” Her phone rings; Duke is demanding that she come back to rehearsal.

SO. Shayna runs back to the sound-check, and now it’s Duke who’s being a drama queen. He’s hiding in his trailer, having instructed his manager to fire Shayna for “letting him down.” Because… she was late to practice? Shayna begs for a second chance. Once she’s grovelled enough, he grants her mercy. Yay?

Finally, it’s showtime. Shayna takes the stage as Duke’s opening act. Just as she heads on stage, Grady shows up in the wings. He tells Duke that he’s [somehow] heard a preview of Duke’s upcoming album and “it’s perfect. You don’t need any more songs, much less from me. Make the album you want to make.” Duke is touched. Just then, Shayna starts her set, opening with what I think we are to understand is the song she and Grady just finished writing. She dedicates her performance to Grady, announcing that the song she’s about to play was inspired by him. “It started as a love song and ended as a love story… even if he doesn’t know it.”

Duke, watching, hands a guitar to Grady and and tells him to “go get ‘er.” Grady surprises Shayna by joining in mid-song. Aaaaand before we know it, they’re singing into one mic and making out on stage while the crowd applauds.

In the audience, Grady’s record label guy is somehow standing next to Shayna’s dad. Shayna’s dad yells out, proudly, “That’s my daughter.” Record label guy gives Dad his card and says, “Have her call me.” Yes. That’s how that works.

Rating: 5 of 10 pumpkins for the city of Nashville and that’s about it. Warning for professional songwriters who don’t understand what “harmony” means.