Stream It or Skip It: ‘A Lifelong Love’ on Hallmark, Starring Andrea Brooks as a Poet Forced to Write an Overly Complicated Book about Love

Hallmark’s lineup of spring romances continues with A Lifelong Love, a love story that is packed with lots of other love stories and a mystery to boot. Andrea Brooks and Patch May star as exes who are reunited by an aggressive publishing exec to knock out an ambitious — and personal — book about love. Will compiling a book’s worth of love stories inspire these two to rekindle the flame they once had? Or will these two close the book on their romance?

A LIFELONG LOVE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Andrea Brooks (When Calls the Heart) plays Annika, a professional poet who runs the popular website/social media page Capturing Romance. It has 25,000 followers, okay? That’s a success by any measure! But Annika wants to branch out by publishing a book of more ambitious poems that she’s spent a decade working on. And since a superstar publishing exec is a fan of her work, she figures she’s got an in.

Patch May (The Professional Bridesmaid) plays Ryan, a successful photographer who’s ready to take his career to the next level by publishing a book featuring his street photography. He’s also Annika’s ex; he proposed to her in college but she was absolutely not ready for that. Their fates unexpectedly realign when — dramatic music sting — the publisher’s second-in-command totally shoots down their proposals! Instead, this guy sees dollar signs in another idea, an idea that Annika and Ryan haphazardly and accidentally pitched: What if they team up and create a book about the search for Annika’s grandfather’s one-that-got-away, a woman he hasn’t seen in over 60 years? And what if the book is filled with poems inspired by the love stories of all the people that Annika and Ryan meet during their search? And what if those poems are accompanied by Ryan’s portraits of said people? Oh — and what if they also post the photos and previews of the poems on Annika’s website so they can stir up interest?

This is exactly what Annika and Ryan set out to do, with grandpa Abe (Tom Young) and Ryan’s niece Ellie (Averie Peters) joining to help with the investigation. There are, of course, a number of setbacks. There are way too many people with the name of Abe’s long lost love, and Ryan’s lackadaisical approach doesn’t mesh well with Annika’s methodical process. And on top of all that, this random publishing bro doesn’t understand why these two can’t turn out a fully-formed book of poetry and portraits in days. Can a book of love stories really be borne of anxiety?

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: I know that I have watched at least a few Hallmark movies about helping a grandparent reconnect with a lost love, and I know that I have seen at least one other Hallmark movie that involves characters gathering love stories from strangers. The problem is that I’ve seen hundreds of Hallmark movies at this point and no specific titles are jumping out to me. Take that as a sign: A Lifelong Love is classic Hallmark, through and through.

Performance Worth Watching: Michael Strickland (Holiday Hotline) is clearly enjoying himself playing Rory, a publishing bro who’s only in it for the dollar bills (you can tell he’s not in it for the art because he has a Bluetooth headset).

Memorable Dialogue: I couldn’t pick just one.

• “I make a living doing online poetry. That means i’m notoriously good at the internet.”
• “Since when do you have to be famous to get a book released?” “Since…. 2016?”
• “You can’t wait for the perfect moment. You can only do your best to make the moment perfect.”

Our Take: So… there’s a lot going on here. I know it’s pointless to critique the believability of any business plan or large-scale artistic endeavor in a Hallmark movie because these movies are not reflections of real life. The hurdles, headaches, and heartbreak that come with writing a book or keeping a restaurant open or saving Main Street are all simplified and minimized in order to give these movies those Hallmark feel good vibes. But even with all that in mind, I could not wrap my mind around exactly what was going on with this book in A Lifelong Love.

Annika — a successful poet in the year 2024! — cannot sell a book of poetry. Ryan can’t sell a book of photography. So they are made to join forces on a book of — okay, a real-life mystery book about the search for Annika’s grandfather’s ex filled with poems inspired by random people who willingly, eagerly, and (most importantly) immediately spill their love stories to a couple of strangers. And they’re paired with what appear to be high school portrait level snapshots from Ryan. How you fit all that into a blurb on a dust jacket, I have no idea.

I’m so hung up on the book proposal because the movie is so hung up on the book proposal. Instead of just leaving it as a cute little plot device to get Annika and Ryan to work together, the movie spends a lot of time dealing with deadlines and logistics, all of which just highlight how complicated this book idea really is. We spend too much time with Annika stressing out about the captions for what I’m guessing are the in-universe equivalent of Instagram posts, with Ryan urging her to just chill and go with the vibes.

And maybe I took this too personally, because oh wow did I feel for Annika — someone who values her craft — being pressured to just crank out a dozen poems in a night by people who don’t understand poetry. Let the woman work! You’ve given her the bizarre task of turning the lifelong romances of strangers into poems based on a single interview that she just conducted hours ago! If you wanted a book of poetry ASAP, Annika has one ready to go and her poetry already has 25,000 followers. I don’t know what to tell you, Rory! Take off your headset and listen to logic!

Now, if A Lifelong Love had a bit more self-awareness, maybe that would balance out how preposterous the book project is. It would have helped to have Annika and Ryan call out some of the more unreasonable aspects of their mission. But instead, the movie has that classic Hallmark sheen of positivity. Even Annika’s Type-A panic attacks over the deadline lack the edge that they should have, an edge that would give the movie a little bit more urgency and would maybe make us a little more invested. It’s perfectly fine for what it is, but A Lifelong Love feels too simple for such a complicated premise.

Our Call: SKIP IT. A Lifelong Love is a perfectly pleasing watch, but the convoluted concept easily overpowers the easygoing performances.