Hallmark Review: 'Love Under the Olive Tree'

For her whole life, Nicole Cabella (Tori Anderson) has dreamed of running her family's beloved oil business. And with her grandfather Frank (Gardiner Millar) announcing his retirement, it seems Nicole is now free to begin her plans to expand upon the ranch. But out of the blue, an obstacle appears in the form of Jake Brandini (Benjamin Hollingsworth), a corporate lawyer and the grandson of Frank's business partner turned rival Raphael (Jerry Wasserman). After learning about Nicole's expansion plans, Jake shows how the intended construction appears to be extending into Brandini territory. With the rivalry between their family reignited, both spurned families take the matter to court.

There, the judge proposes an unconventional way to settle the dispute: whichever olive branch wins Sunset Valley's upcoming olive oil competition gets the land. Nicole is determined to win and prove herself worthy of taking over the ranch, while Jake decides to finally try his hand at the family business. But as they prepare for competition, Nicole and Jake find themselves rekindling their long-ago friendship...which may bring with it other feelings. But will the bad blood between their families prevail?

Towards the third act of this film, I became acutely aware of something that some reviews on IMDB also took notice of. Love Under the Olive Tree has a lot in common with a Hallmark feature from last year: Love, Fall & Order. Both are set in autumn, both center around childhood friends reuniting via a legal dispute between their families, and both even have that dispute revolve around property lines. They both even have a fall festival adding to the goings-on. But even before I made that connection, Love Under the Olive Tree had a retread feel to it. While the olive oil angle gives the film a touch of originality, the film didn't quite capture as much wit and charm as Love, Fall & Order. It doesn't help any that the legal dispute, even by Hallmark standards, is handled in too fanciful a way to stomach. But despite the routine plot and imperfect story, Love Under the Olive Tree's cast and script add enough to avoid letting the film feel like a lame ripoff.

As mentioned before, the olive oil business adds something new to the film. While Love, Fall & Order followed two businesses that have been seen in plenty of Hallmark movies (a farm and a flower shop), Love Under the Olive Tree took a chance exploring something different. The cinematography does a good job capturing the natural beauty of Sunset Valley and both oil businesses. That care for visuals also helps showcase both businesses' strengths, which plays into the film's overall theme about how it's better to work together rather than against each other. And for the most part, the supporting Cabella and Brandini players all bring warm likability to their characters--even as they're in the midst of their feud. Jerry Wasserman's Raphael Brandini is the most consistently likable of the bunch, fully supporting Nicole and Jake's friendship and being the more sympathetically motived half of the Cabellas & Brandinis fallout.

Though on the subject of the plot-triggering feud, there are some hiccups to be mentioned. With the bad blood between Raphael and Frank being so heavily discussed and Frank returning to Sunset Valley just as Nicole and Jake were working to rebuild bridges between their families, you'd think Frank's bitter feelings and pride would become the third act's main source of conflict. Going down that route could've made for a satisfying conclusion to Nicole's character arc, allowing her to stand up to her grandfather's unjust anger towards the Brandini family and thus firmly prove to herself that she is capable of running the ranch with confidence.

WARNING: SPOILERS OVER

Instead, however, the film chooses to go down the standard Third Act Miscommunication path, and the tired trope is especially frustrating here due to how it requires Nicole to become uncharacteristically cruel to Jake for it to happen. It also requires her to have somehow forgotten about when she learned the truth behind the Cabella-Brandini split. While the film at least has Nicole admit to her wrongdoing, it still feels like Jake lets her off the hook too easily for how she treated him.

Plus, Love Under the Olive Tree's somewhat rushed ending results in two glaring problems. First, Jake's father Maxwel (played by Barry Levy) is left as the only member of the rivalry not to be taken to task for their behavior--a big mistake, given how Maxwel is comparatively the nastiest of the bunch. Second, it leaves the movie's message about how the differing ways the Cabellas and Brandinis approach olive harvesting are equally valid a little uneven. Had we gotten to see more benefits of the Brandini methods or how they were incorporated into the new combined business, it would've felt more complete. As is, it toes the line of becoming another Hallmark movie following the "Old-Fashioned=Good, Modern=Bad" fallacy.

(Also, one sound design complaint: there were two moments when I couldn't help but notice the obvious ADR. The instance with Robyn Bradley's Eleanor Brandini was embarrassingly noticeable)

Spoilers Over

As alluded to before, the cast of Love Under the Olive Tree is where a lot of the movie's heart lies. While their chemistry can't hold a candle to Erin Cahill and Trevor Donovan's from Love, Fall & Order, Tori Anderson and Benjamin Hollingsworth still play well off each other as Nicole and Jake rekindle their lost bond. Hollingsworth also shares nice chemistry with Jerry Wasserman as Jake and Raphael bond over the latter's newfound interest in the family business. Anderson and Gardiner Millar try to do the same with Nicole and Frank, but between Frank's absence for much of the film and his less-than-sympathetic backstory, it's a harder sell.

Lastly, we have Shawn Roberts and Andrew Dunbar giving effortlessly lovable performances as Adam and Billy. With so many characters in the movie sniping and bickering at each other, Adam and Billy being wholly nice people with no interest in the ranch debacle is a breath of fresh air. Plus, the gay coding between the pair (while tantalizingly mild) is nonetheless sweet and a nice harbinger for Hallmark's new and improved direction when it comes to representation.

With a flawed story and some characters and plot points that don't get the development they need, Love Under the Olive Tree doesn't quite escape the shadow of Love, Fall & Order. But thanks to a strong cast and a script with as many strong points as there are weak ones, it's still a Hallmark feature that could make for a good watch during your downtime. While it certainly can't compare to the first Benjamin Hollingsworth-led Hallmark movie I saw, there's still enough flavor to make Love Under the Olive Tree worth giving a taste.

Score: 6 out of 10 apple picking contests.