Summer in the City aka Managing Manhattan (2016)
(On Cable TV, September 2022) Generic, unthreatening and predictable, Hallmark Channel romantic comedy Summer in the City is exactly what the channel contracted for: Something that its target audience will lap up with scant discernment. Wish fulfillment writ large, the film sees a small-town clothing store manager being promoted to manage a boutique in Manhattan. You can bet that romantic and professional fulfillment will follow, albeit not according to the stated plan. (Meanwhile, it unfolds exactly to the genre’s usual plotting plan.) Julianna Guill is the usual cloned heroine of those films, with Natasha Henstridge and Vivica A. Fox with small roles along the way. Written with a certain mercenary competence but no real flair, Summer in the City simply plays without resistance. It’s what the audience wants, but outside its bubble (say, played on another channel outside Hallmark’s market) it looks cheap and lazy.