Movie Review: A Tail of Love (2022)

Synopsis: After an injury ended her dreams of being a dancer, Bella Channing found a new life's purpose helping run the dog rescue center her grandparents started to help with her grandfather's PTSD. When family-owned pet food company that had been both their neighbor and biggest supporter is sold, Bella learns the new owner is ending their financial support and evicting them from the property, she begins a desperate search for proof her grandparents owned their parcel of land and enlists the help of JR Stockard, the son of the pet food company's previous owner.

Who's in it? The movie stars Brittany Bristow, Chris McNally, Jayne Eastwood, Humberly Gonzalez and Stephanie Moore.

Review: My wife and I had some time to watch a movie last night and, since I had several Hallmark films saved to our library, let her pick one out. She thought this one sounded interesting and, after watching it, I had to admit it was pretty good.

There were a couple things I found I really liked about this movie. One of the main ones was the primary plot involving the future of Bella's Rescue Center. Since the fate of the shelter relied heavily on them finding a document that might not even exist anymore, it did leave the movie with multiple possible endings, ranging from Bella (Bristow) finding the document at the last second to the new owner, Rachel Montgomery (Moore), having a last-second change of heart, possibly from falling in love with one of the dogs.

And, of course, the fact it was about rescue dogs was one of those things that tugged at your heart strings regardless, especially when they showed the history of one of their rescues, retired military dog Indie. I especially liked how the movie took a few minutes (without going overboard) to show how the rescued dogs can also have a positive impact on the people who adopt them.

I'll even admit, the love story between Bella and JR (McNally) ended up being better than expected, mostly because his military career did (at least at first) seem like a hinderance since he was a short leave and it's not as though he could simply quit his job or refuse to go to Iraq. Since it was a Hallmark movie, we knew they would somehow wind up together, we just didn't know how that was going to happen.

My only real complaint about this movie is I do feel it went a bit overboard with Rachel. Just because she purchased the pet food company and wanted to expand it didn't mean they needed her to be completely evil. I think it would have been better to give her character a little more balance, such as wanting to evict the rescue center from her property but also offering to help them rebuild at a new location or showing how the expansion would benefit the entire community (giving residents a hard choice between jobs and rescue dogs). By not having any sort of redeeming quality, she seemed more like a cartoon villain than an actual person.

Final Opinion: It's a surprisingly good movie that wasn't anywhere near as predictable as it first seemed. I enjoyed watching it and am now thinking about making a donation to our local animal shelter.

My Grade: A