TV film review: Love’s Unending Legacy (2007), directed by Mark Griffiths
A few years after the death of her husband Willie, Missie LaHaye (Erin Cottrell) and her son go back to Anderson’s Corner (?), Missie’s home town. She’s reunited with daddy Clark Davis (Dale Midkiff) and stepmum Marty (Samantha Smith), and starts working as the local school teacher.
When a train of orphans from New York City comes along, Missie is not going to take in one of the orphans. No way, no how. When the oh so sympathetic Pettis couple (Dave Florek and Stephanie Nash) try to get their hands on 14-year-old Belinda Marshall (Holliston Coleman) and she kicks up a fuss – literally – they instead take the younger boy Jacob (Braeden Lemasters). Missie takes Belinda home, as she just can’t bear the thought of the girl going back to the orphanage.
Belinda is about as charming as Missie was to her new stepmother back in Love Comes Softly, i.e. not at all. But with the assistance of handsome Sheriff Zach Tyler (Victor Browne) and by plenty of trust in God Almighty, surely there can be a happy ending after all.
Of course there can, I’ve come to expect as much of this series.
They didn’t bother bringing in the actor who played Sheriff Willie LaHaye, so in the flashback (shown a number of times) where he gets shot, you only see his back. Fortunately, there’s another handsome sheriff to win Missie’s heart. Eventually. After some soul-searching and flirting.
Why Belinda is so anxious about Jacob is obvious right from the start, so the big reveal isn’t much of a reveal, it’s more like stating the bleedin’ obvious.
Anyway. There’s a little bit of Dale Midkiff in it – yes, that’s why I’m insisting on watching these increasingly bland films – but not quite enough to justify any interest. There’s still enough Christianised talk to make Agnostics feel slightly weary and Atheists fed up. Yechhh.
Still, if you don’t mind knowing how every plot thread is going to resolve itself as soon as they’re presented, there’s a wholesome period (Western) romance under this bonnet. It can’t possibly offend, or intellectually challenge, anyone.
2 out of 5 stolen loaves of bread.
