Hallmark-approved summary: Poppy Summerall is hired near Halloween as a temporary nanny by Ryan Lawson, a widowed, work-obsessed executive. Through a series of adventures, the eternally optimistic Poppy sets out to teach Ryan and his two young children what’s important in life – unconditional love, family and the joy of everyday occurrences.
Actual summary: Hallmark Man purchases bride; bride comes with Halloween accessories.
Vintage: Hallmark, 2015
Cast Member Prestige: This film stars Ashley Williams and Sam Jaeger as its romantic leads. Williams’ credits include a starring role on The Jim Gaffigan Show (which was… a thing apparently?) and a stint as Ted’s baker girlfriend Victoria on How I Met Your Mother. Jaeger played Julia’s hot husband Joel on Parenthood and was also on The Handmaid’s Tale, which I did not watch because Self Care.
Hallmark Man Does Hallmark Job:
Ryan Lawson is an app developer whose current product, Food with Friends (it’s Tinder, if hook-ups were mozzarella sticks), is being courted by tech giants Yamahara Global.
The highlights:
Poppy Summerall (ok) is hired as the new nanny for widowed Ryan Lawson and his two moppets Zoey and Zack. Ryan, a Hallmark Workaholic of the Highest Order, is deep into prep for the Big Presentation of his app to Yamahara Global, a presentation that was, naturally, scheduled for Halloween night. As are so many important business functions.
This is significant, though, because Halloween’s been kind of a sad affair since Mrs. Lawson passed away. “Halloween was kind of her thing,” Ryan shares; she used to decorate the house and yard every year, but since her death the children have been living a joyless ghoul-free existence.
Not on Poppy’s watch. After a disastrous trip to a harvest festival where the kids whine their way through a petting zoo, Poppy hauls the kids to a big box Halloween store and buys their affection with literally hundreds of dollars worth of light up decorations, pumpkin carving kits, and animatronic beasties. It works. The kids are psyched to spookify their house, even staying up late to see their dad’s face when he comes home from work and sees what they’ve done.
But this is a Hallmark movie, which means that Ryan is just too work-obsessed to notice his family’s seasonal efforts. He doesn’t even look up from his phone on his trek from car to front door! The nerve! And if that’s not enough, he declines Poppy’s invitation to join her and the kids in baking the homemade Halloween cookies mandated by the children’s school (what?) and punks out of attending the school’s Halloweek festival, a legit theme park held in a cavernous gymnasium that provides an answer to the question: “Do you the Lawson children go to private school?”
After dad’s no-show at the festival, the kids sulk AGAIN. But rather than telling them to buck up and be grateful for their father’s excellent work ethic, Poppy crosses about 35 different boundaries and leads the children in a little virtue-signalling theater wherein they don mini-business-attire and greet Ryan at the door to offer him performance reviews on his work as a parent. Instead of taking away the moppets’ x-box and firing the nanny, Ryan vows to be more present as a father and gets inappropriately handsy with Poppy on the porch.
It’s not smooth-sailing yet, though. Ryan gives the whole hands-on dad an honest effort, shrugging off work early to play football in some crunchy leaves with Poppy and the kids, but work follows him home in the form of his thirsty colleague Abigail, who is sorry to report that Prepping the Presentation Cannot Wait. No worries, says Ryan. “We can just work here. Then we can have dinner. We’re having pumpkin pasta.”
Because of course you are.
After dinner, Poppy puts the children to bed while Ryan and Abigail finish their work. When Ryan heads upstairs later to find Poppy having fallen asleep while reading aloud (from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, natch) to Zoey, he’s charmed. But Poppy freaks, worrying that she and the children are becoming too attached. He wants her to stay on permanently, but she counteroffers with “I’ll stay through Halloween.” Which… is tomorrow? Ryan’s like nope -- leave now if you’re going to bail.
And so she does. Bail, that is. While Ryan just stands there on the front walk, bereft, surrounded by pumpkins.
Fast forward to Halloween! It’s the night of the Big Presentation, and also time for trick-or-treating. Ryan’s assistant from work (who is, I believe, the only non-white actor with a speaking role employed by this production) comes over to the house to wrestle the kids into the costumes Poppy crafted for them while Ryan, in black tie across town, wistfully takes the mic to share the gospel of Food with Friends.
But wait! It seems that Ryan has Discovered the True Meaning of Fall, and it isn’t Yamahara Global. After basically selling out his entire team by spouting off about how Food with Friends has actually made him “less connected” to the people he loves, Ryan peaces out and leaves Abigail to clean up his mess while he bolts home, puts on an inexplicable knight costume, and scoops up the kids to go trick-or-treating at Poppy’s place. Except: the doorbell rings just before they leave, and… it’s Poppy. In a mermaid costume. Ready to mack. “We don’t need a nanny,” croons Ryan. “We just need you.”
Cast Member Prestige: This film stars Ashley Williams and Sam Jaeger as its romantic leads. Williams’ credits include a starring role on The Jim Gaffigan Show (which was… a thing apparently?) and a stint as Ted’s baker girlfriend Victoria on How I Met Your Mother. Jaeger played Julia’s hot husband Joel on Parenthood and was also on The Handmaid’s Tale, which I did not watch because Self Care.
Hallmark Man Does Hallmark Job:
Ryan Lawson is an app developer whose current product, Food with Friends (it’s Tinder, if hook-ups were mozzarella sticks), is being courted by tech giants Yamahara Global.
The highlights:
Poppy Summerall (ok) is hired as the new nanny for widowed Ryan Lawson and his two moppets Zoey and Zack. Ryan, a Hallmark Workaholic of the Highest Order, is deep into prep for the Big Presentation of his app to Yamahara Global, a presentation that was, naturally, scheduled for Halloween night. As are so many important business functions.
This is significant, though, because Halloween’s been kind of a sad affair since Mrs. Lawson passed away. “Halloween was kind of her thing,” Ryan shares; she used to decorate the house and yard every year, but since her death the children have been living a joyless ghoul-free existence.
Not on Poppy’s watch. After a disastrous trip to a harvest festival where the kids whine their way through a petting zoo, Poppy hauls the kids to a big box Halloween store and buys their affection with literally hundreds of dollars worth of light up decorations, pumpkin carving kits, and animatronic beasties. It works. The kids are psyched to spookify their house, even staying up late to see their dad’s face when he comes home from work and sees what they’ve done.
But this is a Hallmark movie, which means that Ryan is just too work-obsessed to notice his family’s seasonal efforts. He doesn’t even look up from his phone on his trek from car to front door! The nerve! And if that’s not enough, he declines Poppy’s invitation to join her and the kids in baking the homemade Halloween cookies mandated by the children’s school (what?) and punks out of attending the school’s Halloweek festival, a legit theme park held in a cavernous gymnasium that provides an answer to the question: “Do you the Lawson children go to private school?”
After dad’s no-show at the festival, the kids sulk AGAIN. But rather than telling them to buck up and be grateful for their father’s excellent work ethic, Poppy crosses about 35 different boundaries and leads the children in a little virtue-signalling theater wherein they don mini-business-attire and greet Ryan at the door to offer him performance reviews on his work as a parent. Instead of taking away the moppets’ x-box and firing the nanny, Ryan vows to be more present as a father and gets inappropriately handsy with Poppy on the porch.
It’s not smooth-sailing yet, though. Ryan gives the whole hands-on dad an honest effort, shrugging off work early to play football in some crunchy leaves with Poppy and the kids, but work follows him home in the form of his thirsty colleague Abigail, who is sorry to report that Prepping the Presentation Cannot Wait. No worries, says Ryan. “We can just work here. Then we can have dinner. We’re having pumpkin pasta.”
Because of course you are.
After dinner, Poppy puts the children to bed while Ryan and Abigail finish their work. When Ryan heads upstairs later to find Poppy having fallen asleep while reading aloud (from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, natch) to Zoey, he’s charmed. But Poppy freaks, worrying that she and the children are becoming too attached. He wants her to stay on permanently, but she counteroffers with “I’ll stay through Halloween.” Which… is tomorrow? Ryan’s like nope -- leave now if you’re going to bail.
And so she does. Bail, that is. While Ryan just stands there on the front walk, bereft, surrounded by pumpkins.
Fast forward to Halloween! It’s the night of the Big Presentation, and also time for trick-or-treating. Ryan’s assistant from work (who is, I believe, the only non-white actor with a speaking role employed by this production) comes over to the house to wrestle the kids into the costumes Poppy crafted for them while Ryan, in black tie across town, wistfully takes the mic to share the gospel of Food with Friends.
But wait! It seems that Ryan has Discovered the True Meaning of Fall, and it isn’t Yamahara Global. After basically selling out his entire team by spouting off about how Food with Friends has actually made him “less connected” to the people he loves, Ryan peaces out and leaves Abigail to clean up his mess while he bolts home, puts on an inexplicable knight costume, and scoops up the kids to go trick-or-treating at Poppy’s place. Except: the doorbell rings just before they leave, and… it’s Poppy. In a mermaid costume. Ready to mack. “We don’t need a nanny,” croons Ryan. “We just need you.”
Rating: 7 of 10 pumpkins for seasonal delights, foliage, and thematic consistency. Warning for nanny-baiting and general caucasity.
Mozzarella sticks.....YUM. Also, this is *pretty much* the very same storyline as a Christmas one I saw a while back. I need to think of the name... something about Graceland.
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