Hope Springs

Year of release : 2003

Run time : 1h32m

Genre : Romance

Cast : Colin Firth, Heather Graham, Minnie Driver, Mary Steenburgen, Oliver Platt

The movie is based on the novel “New Cardiff” by Charles Webb.

Colin is an artist who travelled from England to a small town in the USA. Colin confesses he came to Hope to forget about his fiancé, who sent him a wedding invitation to her wedding to another man. He admits he chose Hope due to its name.

The small hotel manager takes it upon herself to call Mandy, a care giver.

When he wakes up, Mandy is on his bed, telling him to relax and so on. But he can’t, because when she asks him to think of the most relaxing place he’s been to, he can only think of places he travelled to with Vera, his former fiancé, as they were together since childhood.

Colin draws portraits of people in chalk. The mayor of the small town asks him to paint his portrait so he could replace the ugly painting of the founder of the town. If he does so, he is willing to help him with anything he needs.

Mandy comes to pick him up next morning, at ten, to take him to a serene place to relax, but she’s in a bad mood, and drinks a whole bottle of wine when she finally parks the car. So, she gets drunk, asks him to drive, forces him to drive fast, and when she gets to his hotel room she takes all of her clothes off, because when she was little, she used to take all of her clothes off when she was happy(eye roll).

The two start dating, and because the movie would end too soon, Vera makes an appearance.

Vera soon reveals the wedding invite was a trick to make Colin marry her, as they have been engaged for years. She thinks Colin still loves her although he’s with Mandy and says he doesn’t want anything to do with her. Whenever he tells her to leave, and when even others tell her she’s not welcomed, as Colin got over her, she tells them she is not leaving without him,as she doesn’t take No for an answer.

The movie personally bored me. It was predictable and it felt made for tv. Mandy, with taking her clothes off at the beginning of the movie, and the reasoning behind it, and not only ,she spouts some nonsense about how taking your clothes off in front of people, has nothing to do with s3x (because definitely, if you’re naked in a room with a man, he’s not gonna think about it.If this was a different kind of movie she would have been r@ped!) It is not funny, just annoying.

I did like the autumn feeling ,the atmosphere, the brown-red leaves. And the portraits he drew.

The acting was fine.

The soundtrack was good, they have pop and rock songs, like a song by Garbage “Till the day I die” which I used to love at the time, and Blink 182 “All the small things” .

The movie received mixed to negative reviews, with a 25% rating from the critics, and a 27% rating from the audience on Rotten Tomatoes.

You can watch the full movie for free, if you follow this link :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6v_0Qg5pu4

Rating : Could have been a contender !