Plot Summary
Dr. Belinda Owens agrees to let her now-pregnant medical school friend Dr. Annie Watson stay with her while Annie’s husband goes out of town for a short-term job. Believing that his wife needs help, Lee Owens sends for Annie’s controlling mother-in-law, who is impressed with her natural midwife advice, as opposed to Belinda’s medical training. In the midst of this, Lee feels himself torn between worrying about his wife’s desire for a child and his new apprentice’s interest in his adopted daughter Lillian. In the end, they must all learn to work together as they face a medical emergency and other small town tragedies.
Production Quality (1.5 points)
As the main Love Comes Softly series comes to a close, the production is no better than it ever was, only coming in at average. The video quality is just okay, and the camera work is stock. The musical score is generic. The sets and locations are pretty good, but are still quite limited. Costuming and makeup are not terribly authentic. The editing is not up to par, but as we will see next, there really wasn’t much to work with. In summary, the production quality of Love Finds a Home is not as bad as it could be, but with the resources available to Hallmark, it should be better.
Plot and Storyline Quality (0 points)
There is no way to quantify what the true plot of Finds a Home is. There is no driving storyline or compelling arcs. This story is a collection of recycled inspirational frontier scenes and incidents, interspersed with discussions on medical lingo. There are too many disjointed subplots thrown together, so that the movie hops from one thing to the next without creating a common theme or giving the audience a reason to keep watching. In this final installment, Love Comes Softly boils down to a generic family-friendly cable show or a frontier television program rerun. The dialogue is straightforward and non-compelling, thus creating cardboard characters. A bunch of stuff happens and gets resolved just in time for the movie to be over. It doesn’t even end like a typical Love movie, but just stutters to an inevitable conclusion that leaves the viewer wondering what happened to this movie saga that once had such great potential.
Acting Quality (1 point)
With the complete exit of Dale Midkiff and Erin Cottrell from the franchise, the acting is certainly not terrible, but neither is it dynamic. Line delivery is procedural and emotions are absent. As previously mentioned, the vanity of these ‘frontier’ characters does not cease. In the end, poor acting, combined with bad plots, ultimately was the demise of this otherwise epic saga.
Conclusion
The Love Comes Softly saga limped to a close with this eighth installment, another movie that borrowed the title and some character from a Janette Oke book and completely disregarded the original plot that was far more interesting than another generic Hallmark movie. Gone are epic journeys and conflicts, just another small 19th century town filled with people doing stuff. Having finally fulfilled a commitment to rip off all eight of Oke’s better novels, Hallmark then set their sights on a new money-making venture: prequels and sequels!
Final Rating: 2.5 out of 10 points
Box Office Revolution 
As this film tried and failed to redeem their past movies with a good conclusion, I seek to provide the true plot of the conclusion to Janette Oke’s Love series. The novel Love Finds a Home begins with Belinda receiving an invitation from her brother Luke to come visit them for three weeks. At this point the relationship between Belinda and her employer has progressed from nurse to companion, as Mrs. Stafford-Smyth loves Belinda like a daughter. When Belinda attempts to announce her news to Mrs. Stafford-Smyth (whom she now calls Aunt Virgie) she is interrupted by Aunt Virgie’s invitation to spend three weeks sightseeing in New York. Torn between concern for Aunt Virgie’s health and love for her family, she eventually decides to return home for a visit. While Aunt Virgie decided to make the journey to New York with one of her closest friends. Upon her return home, Belinda is shocked to realize how simple and rustic her former life is, this causes her to become confused and wonder where she really belongs. When the three weeks are up, Belinda returns to Boston and finds Mrs. Stafford-Smyth in poor health. It is upon her recovery from this illness that Aunt Virgie accepts Christ as her Savior. Inspired by her newfound faith, Aunt Virgie invites all of her friends for a dinner party and shares the Gospel message with them. Each has their own response, some answer with procrastination, others denial, and still others share their own philosophies about life and death.
Belinda and Aunt Virgie are discouraged that no one responded in the way that they had hoped, then elated to discover that Aunt Virgie’s devoted butler, Windsor, has privately received Christ as his Savior. Mrs. Stafford-Smyth dies a few months later, and upon her death Belinda is shocked to discover that Aunt Virgie has named her not only the heir of the estate, but the recipient of her vast wealth. Leaving only a modest sum and words of wisdom to her errant sons. Naturally, said sons are angry at this installment, but powerless to fight it. Belinda spends time in prayer and contemplation, seeking what God’s will for the mansion is. Eventually, following His guidance, she opens it as a home for the homeless elderly. Several respond and become permanent residents. While at church one day with her residents, Belinda is shocked to recognize Drew, and more shocked to discover that she still cares for him. They talk over coffee and Belinda learns that he acquired a law degree and is currently practicing not far away. He also talks of his missing arm, saying that it hardly bothers him anymore. They continue to meet for a little while. Then, scared of her feelings for Drew, along with a misunderstanding, Belinda leaves the mansion in care of a trusted friend and returns to her hometown, confused and hurt. In the end Drew and Belinda reconcile and are happily married. Drew opens a law office in town and they plan on starting a family. There is even more content than this in the novel, which leads me to my recurring and unanswered question, what was this franchise thinking?
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This plot sounds pretty interesting. I wonder why they didn’t adapt at least some of it for the movie. I guess they couldn’t because they had already used some of these characters and plots in other movies for some reason. This whole series really needs to be redone.
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