[yasr_overall_rating]
After being gone for a decade a country star returns home to the love he left behind.
What happens when you take a bunch of no name actors and make a feel-good movie? You feel good. Let your inner teeny-bopper out and enjoy this simple love story. Like most movies produced for Christians, “Forever My Girl” will leave you with hope and a full heart. Director and writer Bethany Ashton Wolf had a leg up from the typical tear-jerkers with a dove approval – decent acting. I am a big fan of faith-based movies but Let’s be real. The acting is usually fourth rate until this one. This is a story you can immerse yourself in and forget your life and sink into someone else’s troubles.
Alex Roe plays Liam Page, an up-and-coming country singer about to marry his best friend since diapers. Josie (Jessica Rothe) waits in her white dress for Liam to say “I Do” but he never shows. Skip forward eight years to Liam on a tour near his hometown. He catches a whiff of local news which informs him his almost best man had died in a tragic accident. Liam leaves his fans without a clue to his whereabouts to returns home for a not-so-welcome reunion with everyone he left behind. In a matter of hours, he runs straight into Josie’s fist, but not before noticing the little girl at Josie’s side.
Back at his father’s house, who was also the pastor who would have married him and Josie all those years ago, Liam figures out when he walked away from his high-school sweetheart and left town, he also walked away from his single father. With Josie’s permission, Liam sticks around in small-town Louisiana to build a relationship with his precocious daughter, Billy. Josie fights Liam’s subtle advances to rekindle their love, about as much as a kitten fights a bowl of cream. While predictable, their relationship focuses on Billy but leads the young couple back into each other’s arms in stages. Josie should have played hard to get. The girl practically threw herself at her famous ex-fiancé. Billy was the wildcard. Unpredictable in all the right ways and cute to boot. Who wouldn’t love a seven-year-old who told their newfound dad she would get to know him but that didn’t mean she would be easy on him?
Anyone who has seen even that tail end of a Hallmark movie knows how this film will pan out once the teary-eyed bride graces the stage, but the journey to the finish line is worth the inevitable. This is the kind of movie you pop in when your heart needs a fairy tale ending served with a bowl of ice cream dripping in fudge. While not mentally stimulating, it is heart stimulating with decent acting and a sassy kid. The secondary characters are unrealistic and lousy backup singers for the main trio. Just ignore them and pay attention to the two different love stories. Your heart will thank you.
Available on Blu-ray & DVD April 24th
