I honestly loved that they included two stories in this film. Maggie Grace and Poppy Drayton were splendid as their characters Aunt Elizabeth and young Elizabeth. They really do lookalike, you could see that the shape of their noses, voices, looks and the color of their eyes look similar. I honestly thought it was just one actress playing the two ladies but it doesn't matter, this was the best underrated film they have ever done!I was so mad to know at the very end, we didn't see if young Elizabeths lover was gonna get killed by the bandits who held them at gunpoint and stole their money. I normally don't say this when it comes to long movies as I hate when movies drag on but I think this movie however, needed to be longer. The reason being is the story seemed too short for one hour and 28 minutes. If it was one hour and probably 15 minutes more, then it would end the story probably. That was only one complaint, the rest was great. Superb acting, actors, costumes and the whole lot!

This is obviously supposed to be a guilty pleasure kind of movie, so why did they have to take the pleasure out of it??? Yes, there were a lot of nice and funny moments but they seem to have happened by chance because the story (or two-story) pace is absolutely off; there constantly is a build-up to some scene that never happens and we only hear Elisabeth read about it in the journal! I understand it was important to show how a person chooses their path and recognizes what's closest to their heart - okay, we got it the first couple of times. But still - the least you could do is show the actual moments that helped the characters realize this. I don't know about the others, it appears the movie appealed to many and this is great, but for me this kind of movie needs some actual romance (and an actual ball!!!), before using love as a variable in the choice that is supposed to affirm the thematic message.

Thank you, Kielsa03! Your review cleared everything up for me. I have not read the book and I was underwhelmed by the movie, especially by the way it just kind of fizzled out at the end. It made no sense--no one actually gets together, we're left wondering, etc. I was shaking my head "huh?" at the end.I did not realize this was intended to launch a TV series. No wonder so much remained open ended.I will say that Maggie Grace was very good in her role. Most of the other actors were adequate, except for the "free-spirited" sister, whose acting was atrocious. (Hey, just my opinion. YMMV. I liked her looks, as far as being the rascally sister, I just thought her acting choices were awful.)The real star of this movie for me was Wardrobe. Such gorgeous dresses and hats! If I could just vote for the costuming, I would give it 10 stars!

Sometimes when you skim the top off a book to make a movie it can really miss a lot, and/or it can make the story seem overly simple. I'm not sure where the brunette Elizabeth and Edward came from, but adding them really seemed to add depth to the story, and even though it is still technically a simple story you have to pay more attention to keep up. I like both story lines; I hope we get to keep both in the new series coming out in January. I've always liked the original Elizabeth and Wynn from the books, but I also like the Elizabeth and Edward story as well. Since Edward kind of messed up his reputation with Elizabeth, we'll need to see if she gradually gets feelings for him if/when he stays a responsible adult a.k.a. knight in shining armor. I hope we get to keep the best bits from Elizabeth and Wynn's story as well they had quite an adventure together in the books. Just off the top of my head since it's been a while since I got to sit down with the books. When he took her hiking in Banff, brought her a puppy, told her what ?winiwishy? means, took her camping, etc. The original Elizabeth was really mostly done in her head there wasn't a whole lot of interaction between her and Wynn but we don't want to miss any of what there was of it. I really enjoyed this movie like how much I enjoyed the first couple of the Love Comes Softly movies. I hope that since they are able to do the follow up in a series instead of spread out movies over years that the quality on the series will be as good as this kick-off movie is. Debbie Macomber doing her book in series instead of movies really seemed to work well for her; I hope it works well for WCtH also. I think what this movie does is make you want to read the first book again because they kind of skim over Elizabeth and Wynn's story as the new Elizabeth read's her aunts diary while having a story of her own in a cliffhanger style. I can definitely recommend this movie.