I finally worked my way backwards to the first in The Note trilogy, and I’m kind of disappointed in it.

The movie starts and we are introduced to a newspaper columnist named Peyton Macgruder (Genie Francis). She writes a newspaper column called The Heart Healer. We are then introduced to King (Ted McGinley) who plays her love interest and also writes for the paper.

A small complaint I have is that he never really had the short moment of douchebaggery that he had in the other two Note films. I know it was a weird anomaly, but I had gotten used to it. Here we just get a couple of lines that he chocks up to old locker room talk. It’s just not the same.

During the introductions to the characters, including that her column is on the chopping block, we also are hearing about a plane that is going down. Macgruder goes out to a funeral being held for the family of someone who died in the crash. This is when we are introduced to the problem with this film.

The allegedly evil TV news reporter. We know he’s supposed to be bad because how dare he ask this girl very politely a question after Macgruder also went over to her and introduced herself. She goes back to her office in disgust. She says, “How does a guy like Truman Harris sleep at night?” to which her friend responds, “Comfortably wrapped in the arms of any woman he wants.” All this because he went over, introduced himself, and politely asked her a question. This supposedly evil TV news reporter is a running thing in this story and it’s stupid.

After we get a flashback to tell us her husband is dead, she is sitting next to the water and discovers something. It’s a note and a bag of cookie crumbs. She’s struck gold! Now she has a story to milk in order to keep her job. Even King says, “I think you may have struck gold here.” When she brings the idea to her boss, she’s hesitant, but then her bosses boss tells her it’s a good idea so the hunt for who the letter is meant for is on!

Phone call! It’s the evil TV news reporter. He has called her up to dare to offer her the opportunity to use TV coverage to help find the person the note belongs to faster. But she turns him down because it’s her story, and how could he possibly think that finding the person quicker is what she wants. She wants to “do the story as a continuing feature.” You know, drag it out as long as possible to keep her column going.

Now she visits the first person she thinks the letter might have been meant for. The two of them have a nice little conversation, but it isn’t his. The evil TV news reporter shows up as she’s leaving. The guy says he doesn’t want to speak with him and she says, “no comment”. Then she makes sure to remind him that it’s her story and that “without the note you’ve really got nothin'”. Did they even read the lines they have her saying? She comes across as a person who is holding this personal private note hostage and dragging it out for her personal gain while lashing out at someone who could help her find the person who should have the letter as soon as possible.

Now she writes about it, and it’s a hit! Look she’s got 200 emails!

Of course this being a Hallmark movie, it cuts to her face and back to the screen to find it’s suddenly 1,991 messages.

Now she’s asked to work with the evil TV news reporter by her boss because their companies are related, but she’s not having any of it. She goes on a bit of a rant here saying: “I think corporate should go to…Look, this is a story that either I can tell or Truman can tell! Oh, wait a minute, I forgot. Truman can’t tell it because he doesn’t have the note.”

And just in case we thought we were meant to read her as going overboard, she has a conversation with her boss a little while on where she is congratulated. Apparently, she protected her “readers’ interests” and her bosses boss liked that she stood up to those “new media types in New York.” He has been a print guy for 30 years! Wow! That’s like way before television was invented in the 1980s. By the way, she publishes her articles on the Internet as well as in newspaper form.

Then she meets with another lady and this is when we finally get a real reason why she probably shouldn’t work with the TV guy. This lady shares quite a personal story with her. Of course that really doesn’t matter too much because she isn’t the one who the letter was for. Thus, making this exist only for her to have another article and pad the film out with more emotional material.

It basically carries on this way for the rest of the film. Ultimately, her hunt brings her back to herself. I feel bad spoiling it here for some reason even though you can figure it out if you’ve seen the other films in the series. She also gets closer to King in the process. It would all be a nice little emotional story of her going from person to person as this note touches lives ultimately coming around to touch hers in the most profound way. However, they had to throw in this evil TV news reporter. The only purpose he seems to serve is to pander to people who see someone like him as a threat to their traditional values as embodied by this somewhat religious newspaper reporter. It’s totally unnecessary to the story and damages the credibility of the main character needlessly. This isn’t a bad movie, but one with a stupid writing mistake that drags on it.