I’m really glad my cable box told me what movie I was watching cause that title card sure doesn’t do a good job of it. It would be perfectly natural for someone to look at that and think it says Aee Yours before they realized it said All Yours.

Have you ever wanted to see the TV Show Melissa & Joey condensed down to about 90 minutes without a good reason for the smart guy to become a nanny, not much humor, and not much chemistry between Mom and the nanny? Neither did I. To be fair, I’ve been a big fan of Melissa & Joey for years. When I saw that Hallmark had a movie called The Manny in production, I wasn’t too jazzed. They appeared to have changed the title at the last minute though. I mean you can still see in the credits that the movie was made by Manny Productions Inc.

I think what happened was that at the last minute they got the rights to use I’m Yours by Jason Mraz. They probably figured the title All Yours not only fit with the song, but that it sounded more like the generic greeting card titles that Hallmark likes to use.

I mentioned that I’m a big fan of Melissa & Joey so I was constantly comparing it to that show while watching it. That’s only partly fair because that had many many many hours to develop all of the stuff I mentioned before, while this only had an hour and a half. I will try to be reasonable with the film.

The movie begins and we are introduced to Cass McKay (Nicollette Sheridan). She’s a lawyer. The case she’s arguing doesn’t matter. All the case part does for her character is establish that she is a good and busy lawyer. What this film does here is interrupt her argument over and over to cut to her kids at home.

The son’s sister runs up into his treehouse. You gotta put that No Girls Allowed sign where she can see it. She could argue that it wasn’t displayed properly at his establishment so she had every right to go up there. Believe it or not, these scenes are not just to establish that Cass needs a nanny. They are not just to establish that they need a nanny who can put up with the kids’ hijinks either. One of the excuses the daughter gives for getting up in the treehouse is because the son doesn’t use it anyways since he is afraid of heights. This getting over his fear of heights part of the story will be the equivalent to the bridge from Love, Again for example. Or, to use Melissa & Joey as an example, it’s the equivalent of when Joey finds and talks Lennox off the roof in the first episode of the show, thus proving his worth as a nanny. There will be a similar thing with the daughter playing the violin.

Now we get what I always show in these reviews.

I think they did a good job here. They hid the Canadian cellphone provider by having her connected to the courthouse WiFi. It also looks like they modified the screen too. It’s probably a screenshot she is looking at rather than the real interface. Regardless, good work.

Now we cut to the house to chew out the kids and introduce us to Grandma played by Jayne Eastwood.

I always like looking up these actors who I don’t immediately recognize such as Eastwood here. Wow! She seems to have been in everything under the sun. She’s been in what appears to be a sexploitation flick called My Pleasure Is My Business in the 70s, SCTV; Videodrome; and Care Bears in the 80s, the TV Show Goosebumps in the 90s, My Big Fat Greek Wedding; the remake of Dawn of the Dead; Degrassi: TNG; Chicago; and the musical remake of Hairspray in the 2000s, and in a variety of TV Shows and movies along with My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 in the 2010s. At the time of writing this, she has 215 acting credits on IMDb since her first one in 1970. Amazing!

Now we get something pretty awesome. Yes, we get a brief shot of the future nanny named Matthew Walker played by Dan Payne, but who cares when we have this shot.

Care to take a guess at where this shot was taken? It’s on the sign and attached to the flag pole. Times up! It’s Denmark. No joke. That restaurant is at Nordre Beddingsvej 17, 3390 Hundested, Denmark. I have no idea why they use this shot a couple of times, but they do. I’ve seen Hallmark movies shot in the Los Angeles area, all over Canada, and even a pseudo-Hallmark movie shot in Scotland. Denmark is a new one on me. The rest of the movie is shot in the Hallmark favorite of Langely, British Columbia. If anyone involved in the production of this movie knows why this shot ended up in the movie, then please leave a comment.

Now we go inside and meet Matthew’s father Charles played by Michael Kopsa.

Michael Kopsa is another one of these actors that has had a long and eclectic career. He’s been in some major films such Watchmen (2009) and Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011), but he goes back to the late 70s and early 80s where he got his start doing English dub work for the TV Show Mobile Suit Gundam as well as two of the movies. One of which he appears to have done the English voice of the main character: Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack (1988). Always worth taking advantage of IMDb while you watch movies.

He is here to talk to Grandma about his son. His son is the typical well educated guy who really found what he learned in college isn’t his thing so he’s been drifting around. A real world example of a guy like this is Huey Lewis of Huey Lewis and the News. Lewis is a bit of a math genius and attended Cornell. However, he found out it wasn’t his thing and drifted around playing music before settling down and starting his music career. His father was a doctor. That’s kind of how Charles describes his son. Charles is a developer who wants to tear down and redevelop the marina. His son isn’t a fan of that idea. I’m not either considering the marina never really looks like it’s in need of that kind of work during the film. What happens here is that Charles, Grandma, and Matthew strike a deal. Matthew will take a job as a nanny to Cass’ kids, and his father will reconsidering the redeveloping the marina. They keep that a secret from Cass. There’s your setup.

Oh, and they knew each other as kids so that they already come pre-packaged with some basis for their romance. Despite recognizing him, Grandma trying to make the hard sell, the kids obviously already liking him, and them already knowing each other, when Nicolette Sheridan gives you this look,…

then you know she means business.

Next we get introduced to Henry played by Lochlyn Munro who is kind of the wrong guy, but won’t play that role to the degree that we usually see in other Hallmark movies. On the good wrong guy to the weirdo in Christmas Land wrong guy, I’d say he sits somewhere in the middle leaning towards the decent wrong guy.

During the entire film I kept thinking that I had seen this guy before. After the film I checked the credits and realized it’s you cut to me before I had my wig on Burger King from In The Name of the King: Two Worlds (2011).

In the Name of the King: Two Worlds (2011, dir. Uwe Boll)

In the Name of the King: Two Worlds (2011, dir. Uwe Boll)

We meet him as Cass is introduced to a new court case. It is between two tech billionaires that have brought a case against each other so that their reconciliation as old friends can parallel the story between Cass and Matthew. It also adds a bit of a procedural element to the film that lets Matthew edge his way further into her life rather than having a separation of work and home since he went to law school too.

After suddenly needing to be called back to help the kids, Cass gives in and hires Matthew. That’s when she introduces him to the big calendar that will show us at what point Cass is in her character arc based on how much she breaks it and gets involved in the events listed on it. Then Matthew does something that pisses me off. He points out that Monday and Tuesday are reversed on the calendar.

Dammit, Dan Payne! You’re taking away work from cynical Hallmark critics like myself who like to point out flaws in these movies.

Anyways, she then gives him a phone to remind future viewers that this movie was released near Easter.

Also, it definitely doesn’t come in black. It’s not that kind of bunny, Matthew!

The next big thing is when he takes them to school. They actually don’t hide the name of the school at all in this movie. They say it’s Yorkson Elementary School, and it is. Well, sort of. It’s actually Yorkson Middle School, but close enough. It’s at 20686 84 Ave, Langley, BC V2Y 2B5, Canada. It’s new too because you can see it was in construction a few years ago on Google Maps.

They also bring up again that the girl’s equivalent to her brother’s height issue is playing the violin during this scene.

He takes them rock climbing. This is where we really find out that the boy has issues with heights. So of course, Matthew does what anybody would do.

He builds mini rock climbing walls in the backyard. Pretty cool actually.

This is the point in my reviews when I say you’ve got it now. The rest of the movie is kind of on autopilot. The stuff between Matthew and the kids is really the highlight of the movie. It’s not like Melissa & Joey where there’s more a balance in the quality of interaction between the nanny and Mom as well as the kids. He does have his moments with Cass, but the main focus is on his time with the kids. Cass kind of comes for free with Matthew helping the kids. That’s the way it felt to me while watching it.

The son gets over his fear.

The daughter plays the electric violin in the talent show at the end of the film.

There is of course a last minute speed bump. I think having that is in the Hallmark writing bible that they give anyone who is going to make films for them. However, it really does make sense here given how they set things up and all. Does she overreact? Yes, she does, but she comes around and they kiss at the end of the talent show.

Do I recommend it? Maybe marginally. I liked October Kiss better as a Hallmark nanny love story. If you want the the nanny to be a guy, then I really do recommend Melissa & Joey. The best part of the movie I would say is with the kids played by Genea Charpentier and Kiefer O’Reilly.

Here are the songs: