"Love Under The Rainbow" - Spoiler Alert

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Happy Valentine's Day!🌈

"Love Under the Rainbow" is a Hallmark original that first aired in 2019. I watched it for the first time around mid-December and I knew I wanted to post my review of it on Valentine's Day. I also watched it again yesterday, exactly two months later.

It caught my attention because rainbows are meaningful to me for multiple reasons, so despite the mediocre reviews, I knew I had to watch it. One of the main characters is an elementary school teacher, so that also caught my attention having been a teacher myself once upon a time.

All of the characters in this movie are extremely likeable and it's easy to root for all of them. The love story portion of it is a trademark Hallmark romance. A single woman who is hesitant to find love meets a single man who is also hesitant. He also happens to have a charming daughter who easily makes friends. Man meets woman in a coffee shop where they share casual conversation and spilled coffee.

The dad (Jack) drives his daughter (Sophie) to her new school, as they have just moved to the area. It just so happens Lucy (the woman Jack met at the coffee shop) is Sophie's teacher. Lucy has a conversation with Jack in the hallway and makes the assumption that he has a wife. She makes reference to his wife multiple times. She then finds out from another teacher that Jack's wife passed away. She of course feels bad for the assumption she made. She wasn't the only one who made reference to Jack's wife, assuming he's married.  I think they could have worked that differently.

Anyhow, the science fair is coming up soon and Sophie decides her project will be all about chasing rainbows. As if she didn't already capture my heart, this did it for me. I am one who looks for and chases rainbows even on sunny days.

Over the course of the movie, a friendship/relationship develops between Lucy and Jack. Lucy also develops a closer relationship with Sophie, a motherly one, and they all begin spending more time together. Also over the course of the movie, Lucy and Jack have several chance encounters, such as at the park, the store, and at the movies (perhaps a few too many of these chance encounters). The park, which Jack referred to as an oasis, was beautiful. It reminded me of a park I like to visit. Beautiful, magical even, settings like that really do exist.

So the day of the science fair arrives and Sophie's dad is a little late, but he gets there in time to see most of his daughter's presentation. He was late because he was at work and he almost forgot about the presentation. (Um, okay...) While he was at work, he also gets offered a job in Miami, which is what he originally wanted. Predictably so, Sophie wins first place in the science fair.

There are two minor subplots in this movie. Lucy's sister is pregnant. She has been married for ten years and they've been trying to have children. Just when they gave up trying was when she got pregnant. The path of least resistance prevailed!

The other subplot is that Lucy's parents are celebrating their 40th anniversary and they renewed their vows in the park (the oasis) I mentioned earlier. While the party is going on, Jack brings his daughter to the park and soon after they arrive, Lucy's sister's water broke. Time to rush to the hospital! Except the driver for the family (her husband) locked his keys in the car. Guess who takes them to the hospital. Jack to the rescue! It's like they're one big happy family already. Soon after, a healthy baby girl is born.

Since Sophie won the science fair, she got to choose where to take the class. She chose a place where rainbows are everywhere, a place where Lucy had told her about. Sophie ends up in tears at the park while chasing all the rainbows. Why? Because she thought she was going to find her deceased mother there. (Her mother was really into rainbows). This is why Sophie was so interested in chasing rainbows. At this point, Jack seriously considers taking the job in Miami that he was offered and he tells Lucy about it. He's frustrated that his daughter is in tears.

Lucy is later seen at home looking at an album she created when she was a little girl. Her mother tells her she used to call it her "wedding album". It's filled with ideas of what finding the love of her life would be like and as she looks through it she thinks of Jack, though another part of her as already accepted that they won't be together.

Eventually, Jack realizes he wants to decline the job offer in Miami and stay where he can be with Lucy. They meet at the park that he adds his special touches to, with the help of Sophie. The movie concludes with a night scene, where all three of them see, not a rainbow, but a moonbow. An earlier reference in the movie indicated that moonbows are supposed to bring good luck. Presumably, they live happily ever after.

While this movie does have its flaws (hence the four stars and not five), I really enjoyed it. The overall storyline, the scenery, the cast, the charming characters all made it what it is. However, a quote by Sophie captures the true essence of why I enjoyed the movie and that is "Rainbows are proof that magic exists."🌈