What I Did for Love

2006 "They're young. They're in love. They're going home for Christmas."
5.6| 1h28m| en
Details

Call him a city slicker. Call him a tenderfoot. But don't call him a member of the family--yet. Rising L.A. lawyer James White is going home for the holidays with his fiancée, Sadie Ryder, to finally meet her family in rural Pine Gap. After blundering through a bad first impression, James attempts to win over Sadie's lawyer-loathing father Karl by pretending to be a horse-riding, hay-baling, game-hunting, seasoned square dancer. But a pair of worn jeans and a ten-gallon hat don't make a cowboy, and it's going to take more than mere posturing to charm Mr. Ryder... in fact, it just might take a miracle.

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Reviews

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.
Orla Zuniga It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review
Hattie I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.
Edwin The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.
Amy Adler James (handsome Jeremy London) is a rising attorney in the Los Angeles area. Lucky for him, too, is that he has been dating the woman of his dreams, Sadie (beautiful Dorie Barton) and she is his professional equal, being a physician. As they are decorating a Christmas tree, James pulls out a little velvet box and gets down on his knee. Sadie is happy. However, since James has never met her family, she suggests they go to her home in the Rockies for the holidays. Fine, thinks James. But, trouble starts immediately after they arrive. To begin, the relatives all think James is a doofus and a city slicker, since he doesn't know how to ride, shoot or stay away from cooking. Most ornery of all is Sadie's dad, Karl (the wonderfully gravel-voiced James Gammon). He seems to merit a bit of slack, however, since he is a fairly recent widower. Then, James always seems to say the wrong thing, setting teeth to grinding. Most troubling of all, there is some dispute between the ranchers and the Bureau of Land Management and James, being a legal expert, wants to play go-between, which outrages Karl. Will they all be able to accept James as a permanent member of the family? This is a lovely film with glowing scenery from Wyoming or such. Makes one want to get the next ticket to the nearest ranch. Also, the cast is wonderful, with Sally Struthers making an appearance as an aunt and the rest of the supporting cast complimenting the two leads in fine fashion. If you are a romantic at heart and love a mix of comedy and drama, you will enjoy this little charmer.
NuGram I adore romance but this one was so trite it's actually hokey. Also boring, predictable, and done-to-death. This piece offers nothing new to the genre. (Or the viewer). It is common and cliché. The only good thing about this waste of time and money was the scenery. The best advice is to turn it on, leave and go to the bookstore and buy a good romance novel, have dinner, and come home just in time to watch the predictable ending. You won't have missed anything worthwhile and you'll actually have something entertaining to read instead of wasting time on this lightweight drivel.I always find it suspicious when a film gets "glowing" reviews but a mediocre viewer rating. Makes me question whether some of the "reviews" are actually being written by people involved with the production who are padding these glowing reviews...
tcleaver2005 I enjoyed this movie very much. I believe it to be very realistic. Many city people really do act like this guy when they go to the country. I found it to be a nice clean movie that the whole family can enjoy! There needs to be more movies like this one made. If you like a good clean romantic comedy, this is a must see. I would recommend it to anyone.I think the actors and actresses do a great job of portraying their parts. You do not see to many movies that are based on reality. This one has hard times and good times. It also has some good morals brought out in it. For instance, the father didn't see the boyfriend's inner self--all he could see was a big city lawyer that he didn't like. He thought the guy was dumb and did all he could to make his life miserable. His daughter, however, remained very loyal to her father and waited for her father's blessing on her marriage. It also shows that crimes don't pay. The ex-boyfriend was out to get her current boyfriend and blamed him for things that he had not done. In the end, the truth came out.The movie doesn't end there though. Everyone that was at odds with each other reconciled at the end. It has a very happy ending. I think that most people would enjoy this movie a lot. It is worth seeing at least once. I myself have watched it several times.
TallPineTree This is the story of a big city doctor (Sadie) bringing her lawyer boyfriend (Travis) home to the ranch where she grew up to meet her family (widowed dad and brothers) for the first time.The boyfriend wants to marry her. She wants to take it slower and for her father to meet him first, even though she is convinced her dad will love him. He is a city boy and wants to make a good impression, and the family is rural as they live on a ranch. Sadie has an ex-boyfriend back in the town she grew up in who really wants to reunite with her. Everything goes wrong for the boyfriend until everything goes right in time for a happy ending with life lessons learned.A terrible movie, even for a TV movie. The actress playing Sadie is awful. At no time did I believe Sadie was a doctor, nor did I believe she grew up on a ranch. Sadie seemed to me to be a spoiled city girl with no clue. She was a totally unlikeable character. Now, I know the movie's plot called for the boyfriend to do some stupid things out of ignorance of ranching life, but I was thinking if she was my girlfriend, knowing I was ignorant and a fish-out-of-water, and didn't take a moment to explain some things, is she the right person for me?The boyfriend, Travis, was hapless and pathetic. A lawyer, yes. A successful lawyer, no.Sadie is an only daughter and supposedly the father is protective of his only daughter, but mainly he came across as crusty. At least the actor playing this character had a little charisma and tried to act in his limited role.Sadie's brothers were throwaway characters.Sally Struthers is an Aunt who wants Sadie to reunite with Sadie's ex-boyfriend. Why? Because the plot needs a reason for the obvious one-note loser of an ex-boyfriend to show up to be the story's bad guy. The Aunt also had a slight subplot which... who cares!Throw in some mumbo-jumbo about environmentalists and grazing rights and wolves. The writer doesn't seem to understand the issues, and if she did, she didn't let that get in the way of the story. The writer seemed to not want to offend anyone and her solution of the environmentalists buying instead of taking the grazing rights, and then the ranchers buying grazing rights elsewhere had the problem that grazing rights are associated with land and they don't make new land or new leases. I shook my head in disbelief when the solution was to take the money and buy new grazing rights somewhere else. And where would that be?So the grazing rights solution should tick off the ranchers watching the movie. The environmentalists should be ticked off as someone in the movie is threatened by a wolf and needs to be saved. I live in Montana where the government is re-establishing wolf packs in the area (Montana, Idaho, and Yellowstone Nat'l park). What wolf supporters are saying is that wolves don't attack people. Livestock, yes. People, no. This movie and its portrayal of wolves should upset the environmentalists.I kept thinking the movie couldn't get any worse but then they wrapped it up with a 'can't we all just be friends' happy ending. The boyfriend at the last minute was able to save the day, win a fight, bake a fretata everyone adored, and win over everyone. Surprise.Now, I can like a clichéd movie as much as the next guy, but to ignore the clichés one needs interesting actors. The dull actors in this movie couldn't overcome the heavy handed and terrible story. The only thing I liked about this movie was a couple scenes of a sunrise/sunset that was pretty.Avoid this movie!