Brimming with Love

Dear fellow readers,

I recently watched a heart-warming film, "Brimming with Love" from hallmark. This movie was so relatable and may possibly hit home for many.

Allie is an aspiring journalist who is sceptic about love due to being left at the altar by her ex-fiancé. She wanted to change from her usual sales role to being a writer. She had the idea to write a former circus performer with dancing dogs but runs into Sam because she made the wrong turn. He was trying to put balloons up on his cafe, Brimming with Love. And Sam thought his colleague Tyler was helping him but he was too distracted with his phone. One of the balloon slips out of Allie's grasp and Sam says, "Do I have to fire you from balloon duty? Come on!"

She replied, "Wait! I work for you?"

A stirring of chemistry surfaces between the two as Sam shifts the bunch of balloons out of the way to see a beautiful woman standing before him.

"Are you gonna fire me?" she jests.

"Yes, but I'm willing to offer you a generous severance package of a complimentary cup of coffee."

She accepts and walks into the cafe to get her coffee and admires the pictures on the back wall of happy couples. Tyler explains to her about the matchmaking and gives her a coffee card. His colleague Emily says, "You just buy thirty cups of coffee and in exchange, he sets you up with the love of your life."

She politely declines by saying, "Not my cup of tea."

Her colleague Mia convinced her to write it about it and she realizes she didn't have much of a choice when her boss disapproves her other ideas. So, she pitches the story about finding love over coffee at a cafe that offers a matchmaking services. Her boss thought it was brilliant and says that has heart. She asks Sam if he wouldn't mind her writing about that idea. At first, he's not too keen but she manages to convince him.

She starts by interviewing about his process of matchmaking and her questions come off quite cynical when she realizes he was single. She tried to pitch another idea to her boss but he liked the previous idea and told her to figure out how to make her story work. She apologises to Sam and so does he over a misunderstanding. He realizes he should be more open minded to the fact that not everyone will see things the way he does.

Tyler and Emily are best friends but he seems buried in his phone all the time and reveals to her he's been on a dating app. She helps him out and convinces him to swipe on a girl named 'Jessica'.

Eric and Mia are forced to work together. She notices how he's too stuck in his work than being social and encourages him to get out there and have some fun. They slowly bond while working together. Mia had no idea had similar tastes.

Mia helps Allie with her writing and Sam matches her up with a few dates. But after thirteen cups, she pulled out of the project which devasted Allie. Her boss was not happy and was about to arrange a writing team to fix the series but she reluctantly agrees with his first suggestion of her going through the matchmaking process. As Sam already knows her and she wouldn't be starting from scratch, she was willing to step in Mia's place from the thirteenth cup. Her boss gave her the final chance to finish her story.

Sam sets her up with someone but she freaked out and ran off. She returns apologetically and he understandingly sets her up again. A sweet old man appears and she thought Sam was joking with her but turns out he was Sam's grandfather and a date actually turns up after a brief chat.

Over the course of the project, Allie begins to develop feelings for Sam and secretly hoped he was her blind date. They both admit their feelings and accepts each other as the final cup of coffee match on the night of the cafe's 40th anniversary.

Emily finally admits to Tyler that she was 'Jessica' that night when he had been so disappointed that 'Jessica' never turned up to meet him. When she confessed her feelings to him, he felt the same and from that moment on, he was no longer distracted with his phone.

And at the end of the night, as Allie settles in the for the night, she receives a comment from a reader who says her friend was left at the altar by him and she returns to the cafe to confront him. Emily overhears this.

Disappointed, Allie realizes she has to embellish the ending for the sake of her readers and give them the happy ending they wanted. And as she leaves work to finish the series at home, Emily was waiting outside for her and explained what really happened. Allie tries to apologize to Sam but he was not too happy and wouldn't hear her out. His grandfather overhears this and talks some sense into him.

Allie opens up herself in the series as the ending and admits to him that after spending time with him, she had fallen for him. Her boss loved her ending and promotes her as a permanent writer. As she walks out of his office dejected, he follows behind and says, "You forgot something."

And holds up a sticky post-it note that says, 'Brimming'. Mia and Eric walk over and she holds up 'with' and Eric had 'love' on his sticky post-it. And Mia tells Allie, "Go." She goes to the cafe to find a sticky post-it on the door telling her to meet Sam in the courtyard for her final cup.

As they approach each other, he says, "You have your punch card?"

She chuckled, "Yeah."

"Can we start over it?" he asked.

She nods and replies, "Yeah."

"Told you there'd be a happy ending," he tells her, "Just needed to give it time."

She steps closer towards him and he leans in, they kissed.

Honestly, I understand how she feels. I've never been left at the altar but I've been hurt a lot. It's really hard to open up and trust when so many ruin the hope and opportunities. But of course, as much as I am a sucker for hallmark romance and mystery movies, I'm in no rush. I'm all for focusing on myself right now and I'm okay with that. I am happy living vicariously through hallmark movies.

Until next read... ciao!