After her husband is arrested for financial fraud, country singer Faith (Jana Kramer) returns home to North Carolina and reconnects with her estranged family.  Her father (Gerald McRaney) is there to offer support and small-town, no-nonense wisdom and she’s going to need all of it when she has to choose between the hot local doctor and her repentant husband.

Because Faith’s father was dying of a brain tumor, I assumed this was a Nicholas Sparks movie but it wasn’t.  It was just a close copy.  Heart of the Country was a movie about the importance of keeping your marriage together, even if your husband was involved in a Ponzi scheme!  Faith’s husband (Randy Wayne) didn’t have anything to do with the scheme but he knew it was going on at his firm and he didn’t say anything.  When he thinks about rejecting a plea deal that would keep him out of prison because it would mean admitting his guilt and embarrassing his old money family, Faith’s father tells him to be a man and admit that he knew what was going going on at his firm.

Other than some mild language, Heart of the Country could have easily passed for a Hallmark movie.  I didn’t agree with Faith’s decision at the end but I did like the way the movie portrayed the relationship between her and her father.  Gerald McRaney was really good in the role.  It was the last movie that I watched yesterday and I’ll give it a mild recommendation just because of McRaney and some of the music on the soundtrack.  If you’re into Hallmark-style movies, this one was okay.