SYNOPSICS
When Calls the Heart (2013) is a English movie. Michael Landon Jr. has directed this movie. Maggie Grace,Stephen Amell,Poppy Drayton,Daniel Sharman are the starring of this movie. It was released in 2013. When Calls the Heart (2013) is considered one of the best Comedy,Drama,Romance movie in India and around the world.
In 1910, Elizabeth Thatcher is a Canadian woman from an affluent family. Her father is a shipping magnate, but Elizabeth has chosen a career as a school teacher for herself. She eagerly waits for her first assignment, and is disappointed to learn that they are sending her to Coal Valley, Alberta. It is a tiny coal-mining town in the westernmost areas of the Canadian frontier, and life there is far more spartan than what Elizabeth is used to. Elizabeth has little trouble charming the locals but is disliked by another newcomer to town: Constable Jack Thornton of the Royal North West Mounted Police. He was assigned there after Elizabeth's father pulled some strings, apparently to ensure the safety of Elizabeth. Jack feels that this is a dead-end to his career, and is quite angry about it. Coal Valley has recently lost about 50 miners in a serious mining accident. The widows of the dead are increasingly forced to replace them as workers, and Abigail Stanton (the foreman's widow) seems to ...
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When Calls the Heart (2013) Reviews
Different than the original, but still good!
I agree with the other reviewers that this movie is different than the original story in Janette Oke's books. At first, I was confused & really tried to figure it out. I gave up on that & decided that both the books & the movie are good stories in and of themselves. So, if you loved the books, you'll also love this movie (& now the series), just go into it knowing that the story lines are different. You'll still enjoy it. The costumes are beautiful, the scenery is beautiful and the acting is well done. Maggie Grace makes a great Elizabeth Thatcher. A better one than Poppy Drayton in my opinion. Stephen Amell has turned into one of my favorite actors since I fell in love with his eyes! LOL What a gentleman!
Not bad, but a bit confusing and a little disappointing if you've read the books
As a big Janette Oke fan, I can't help but compare this movie to the Canadian West books, which it's somewhat based on. So here goes... In the books, which begin in April 1910, Elizabeth Thatcher lives in eastern Canada with her parents, younger sister Julie, and younger brother Matthew. (She has two older sisters who have already left home.) She has already been teaching for a while when her older half-brother Jonathan writes and invites her to come out west to teach. She accepts the offer and initially stays in Calgary with Jon, his wife Mary, and their four children: William, Sarah, Kathleen, and Elizabeth. Mr. Higgins, the man who is to assign Elizabeth to a school, lives in Calgary and tries to convince her to marry him, and when she refuses, he assigns her to a school over 100 miles away. She accepts the position and eventually meets Wynn Delaney, who happens to be a good friend of her brother Jon. In the movie, which also begins in 1910, the Elizabeth we initially meet is supposed to be Elizabeth Thatcher Delaney's niece. She lives in the east with her parents and younger sister Julie, who is much like the Julie in the book, who is her aunt. Mr. Higgins lives in the east and tries to convince Elizabeth to give him "special favors" in order to get a good teaching position nearby. She refuses, so he gives her a teaching assignment way out west, which she eventually decides to accept. Young Elizabeth reads her Aunt Elizabeth's diary, which tells about when she went out west to teach school, including how she met Wynn Delaney. The movie goes back and forth between Aunt Elizabeth's story in the past (which must be the late 1800s, unlike in the book) and young Elizabeth's story in the present. The parts of the movie about Aunt Elizabeth mostly match the story in the book, which I really like. But I wish they wouldn't have left out Jonathan and his family and mixed elements of Aunt Elizabeth's story into young Elizabeth's story. Worst of all, they don't even finish the story of Wynn and Elizabeth, and young Elizabeth's dad tells her that they don't even know what happened to Aunt Elizabeth. In the books Elizabeth stays in touch with her family, even though it's hard because she's sometimes in remote places. Later on, Elizabeth and Wynn move to a more "civilized" area, so by the time any nieces they have are grown up, they're in a place where they can regularly send letters to their relatives. The Canadian West series is interesting enough to make great movies, but instead of focusing on the great original story, movie makers have created this new niece Elizabeth and focused half the story on her. The ending made me feel like the story was unfinished, which I guess makes sense since this is the beginning of a TV series. I have a feeling the TV series will focus just on young Elizabeth and Edward, but I hope they'll at least finish Wynn and Elizabeth's story. I'll probably check out the series when it comes out, and I'll probably enjoy it. If you're hoping for a movie adaptation of the book, When Calls the Heart, you're not going to be totally satisfied and will probably be a bit disappointed like I was. But it's still a pretty good story, and it's clean and interesting without bad language, sex scenes, or graphic violence.
Okay. Just okay.
Thank you, Kielsa03! Your review cleared everything up for me. I have not read the book and I was underwhelmed by the movie, especially by the way it just kind of fizzled out at the end. It made no sense--no one actually gets together, we're left wondering, etc. I was shaking my head "huh?" at the end. I did not realize this was intended to launch a TV series. No wonder so much remained open ended. I will say that Maggie Grace was very good in her role. Most of the other actors were adequate, except for the "free-spirited" sister, whose acting was atrocious. (Hey, just my opinion. YMMV. I liked her looks, as far as being the rascally sister, I just thought her acting choices were awful.) The real star of this movie for me was Wardrobe. Such gorgeous dresses and hats! If I could just vote for the costuming, I would give it 10 stars!
I can definitely recommend this movie.
Sometimes when you skim the top off a book to make a movie it can really miss a lot, and/or it can make the story seem overly simple. I'm not sure where the brunette Elizabeth and Edward came from, but adding them really seemed to add depth to the story, and even though it is still technically a simple story you have to pay more attention to keep up. I like both story lines; I hope we get to keep both in the new series coming out in January. I've always liked the original Elizabeth and Wynn from the books, but I also like the Elizabeth and Edward story as well. Since Edward kind of messed up his reputation with Elizabeth, we'll need to see if she gradually gets feelings for him if/when he stays a responsible adult a.k.a. knight in shining armor. I hope we get to keep the best bits from Elizabeth and Wynn's story as well they had quite an adventure together in the books. Just off the top of my head since it's been a while since I got to sit down with the books. When he took her hiking in Banff, brought her a puppy, told her what ?winiwishy? means, took her camping, etc. The original Elizabeth was really mostly done in her head there wasn't a whole lot of interaction between her and Wynn but we don't want to miss any of what there was of it. I really enjoyed this movie like how much I enjoyed the first couple of the Love Comes Softly movies. I hope that since they are able to do the follow up in a series instead of spread out movies over years that the quality on the series will be as good as this kick-off movie is. Debbie Macomber doing her book in series instead of movies really seemed to work well for her; I hope it works well for WCtH also. I think what this movie does is make you want to read the first book again because they kind of skim over Elizabeth and Wynn's story as the new Elizabeth read's her aunts diary while having a story of her own in a cliffhanger style. I can definitely recommend this movie.
Too many missed opportunities
This is obviously supposed to be a guilty pleasure kind of movie, so why did they have to take the pleasure out of it??? Yes, there were a lot of nice and funny moments but they seem to have happened by chance because the story (or two-story) pace is absolutely off; there constantly is a build-up to some scene that never happens and we only hear Elisabeth read about it in the journal! I understand it was important to show how a person chooses their path and recognizes what's closest to their heart - okay, we got it the first couple of times. But still - the least you could do is show the actual moments that helped the characters realize this. I don't know about the others, it appears the movie appealed to many and this is great, but for me this kind of movie needs some actual romance (and an actual ball!!!), before using love as a variable in the choice that is supposed to affirm the thematic message.