Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Autumn At Apple Hill’ on the Hallmark Channel, A Generic Romance That’s An Ode To The Splendor of The Season

The entire slate of fall programming set forth by our friends at the Hallmark Channel could best be described by that great McSweeney’s post, “ It’s Decorative Gourd Season, Motherf—ers .” On Hallmark, it’s always decorative gourd season somewhere, and in the case of the new movie Autumn at Apple Hill , the time and place for decorative gourds mixed with an opposites-attract romance is now. Unfortunately, as pumpkins go, this one ain’t that great.

Opening Shot: An old-fashioned car drives down a dirt road. A voiceover explains, “Grandma Hannah always said, all it takes is just one moment to change everything.”

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The Gist: That voiceover is delivered by a woman named Elise (Erin Cahill) who is freshly divorced and has inherited her Grandma Hannah and Grandpa Charlie’s old motel called the Inn at Apple Hill. Elise grew up in and around the inn and is delighted to be its caretaker, and she revels in the old-fashioned customs and look of it all. The trouble is that the inn is falling apart, it doesn’t turn a profit, and she can’t get a loan to make improvements.

Over in New York City, Luke (Wes Brown), the workaholic CFO of a major hotel chain, is wheeling and dealing and never not closing. His mother, who is also his boss, insists he take a mandatory vacation, so he heads to his hometown of Landover to visit friends and stay at this quaint, local B and B, the Inn at Apple Hill. Elise and Luke have one of those classic rom-com meetings: he’s playing an arcade game at the local pizza shop and when she comes in, she’s annoyed that he’s on her machine. They argue over how long he’s been playing, he eventually defeats the game and she fumes that her all-time high score has been usurped. As she takes her anger to work, she’s dismayed to see who else but Luke walk into the inn as a guest.

Elise tries to make his stay miserable, giving him a room with leaks and creaks and a phone that can’t reach an outside line, and he laments the wasted potential of such a charming property. She thinks he’s a jerk and when she realizes he’s the hotel scion of a major chain, she assumes he’s just there to scout the property in order to buy it from under her.

Though Elise assumes the worst about Luke, he’s not actually a bad guy and doesn’t have the ill intentions she thinks he does. In fact, he just wants to decompress, but when he sees how run down the inn is, he makes it his mission to help her business thrive. Luke comes up with the idea to hold a Halloween party at the inn, a tradition that died with Elise’s grandparents. With his enthusiastic help, Elise sources free decorations, promotes the event on social media, and sells tickets to everyone around. And it also forces Elise to eat some crow, admitting that she had Luke all wrong. Luke also makes a stark realization that this change of pace and country way of life suits him. After the big Halloween bash, which helps Elise’s inn get the loan she needs, he decides to stay in Landover and make a life with her at the inn.

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What Movies Will It Remind You Of? The movie is basically You’ve Got Mail without all the Godfather references.

Our Take: The entirety of Autumn at Apple Hill is bathed in sunset hues and feel-good vibes. The Hallmark tradition of decking out their films with quaint, picturesque charm that’s used as a backdrop for warm, non-threatening romance is alive and well and embracing the October of it all in this movie. If you asked me what this film smells like, the answer would be pumpkin spice.

The disappointment of the movie is that, while it’s perfectly pleasant, there are no surprises, no supporting characters that lend a charismatic flair to the joint, nothing that makes it great. It serves its purpose as a middle-of-the-road romance where the unlikely lovers end up together, but I’ve seen better (and worse) versions of this film elsewhere. Let me put it this way: this is the candy corn of movies. Some people will love it, some will hate it, and it won’t be on anyone’s radar come November.

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Parting Shot: Luke tells Elise he has a surprise waiting for her in the dining room of the inn. When she walks in, it’s the full-sized arcade game they were fighting over when they met. As they begin to play, they exchange a quick kiss and say, “Game on.”

Performance Worth Watching: Sara Luby, who plays Elise’s employee Nora, is the closest thing to a quirky side character as the film gets. A little awkward and romantically inept, she pines for the local handyman, but it isn’t until Luke swoops in to set them up that she gets her man.

Memorable Dialogue: “I can already tell you seem like type of person who needs to zen-out,” Luke tells Elise when they first meet. “Says the guy wearing sunglasses indoors,” she retorts. They hate each other already, but they’re gonna loOoOve each other soon!

Our Call: Hallmark movies like this one are tough for me, because there’s nothing inherently bad about it, nothing egregious that deserves a warning to stay away, but aside from being an advertisement for “autumn upstate” there’s also no real hook that suggests it’s a must-see. Reluctantly, I’m going to suggest that you can SKIP IT.

Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction .

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