May 18

May 18 'Countdown to Summer' movie review: 'Sailing Into Love'

Hallmark movies are not typically accused of having too much plot - but the small-town romance "Sailing Into Love" (airing May 18 as part of the Hallmark Channel's Countdown to Summer) is actually at its best when its subplot is ignored, and the focus is squarely the romance.

In short: Biology teacher Claire (Leah Renee) takes her students to study on an isolated, picturesque Blue Island. As Claire starts to fall for a new charter boat captain, Tom (Chris McNally), she discovers her ex-boyfriend works for a developer trying to build a resort on the island.

"Sailing" slowly drifts along for almost a full hour before any real plot development actually starts to take shape. While "Blue Island resort" b-plot simmers in the background early in the movie, it allows Claire and Tom to slowly but surely fall for each other. It's enough that the small town teacher bristles at first with the boat captain with wanderlust. Their inevitable romance feels so organic and natural. There's no contrived "opposites attract" silliness - "Sailing" just keeps finding ways to bring Claire and Tom together again and again, and allows their romance to blossom.

Sitting in the background, however, is a sub-plot that doesn't matter - until it does. The problem with the "Blue Island resort" plot thread is that everything about it is so thin. Claire loves the island, but her ardent love for the remote island amounts to little more than "it's quiet and isolated." The story only makes the minimal effort to establish why the small town should try to save Blue Island pretty late into "Sailing." The movie almost doesn't care at all about the "Blue Island" b-plot for the first half, then leans into the plot a bit too hard.

Renee and McNally are well cast as the headstrong Claire and adventurous Tom respectively. Gotta give a shout out to McNally's take on the quietly dashing boat captain. He wins over Claire with his nuanced, debonair attitude -- Tom is a naturally, good guy.

And it's a small thing - but the movie's title is a complete misnomer. Sailing and boats almost don't matter at all to the movie. The very same story could have been told with Claire trying to save a beloved landmark or park instead of an island. The fact that Tom is a boat captain and that a handful of scenes take place on a boat seems to be the only justification for calling the film "Sailing."

Final verdict: Watching Claire and Tom fall in love is sweet and lovely - watching them slog through the process of dealing with a city council to stop a municipal decision to sell property to a real estate corporation ... is less romantic.