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 Ben Vereen shares a fire with Chandra Wilson and her two dogs. |
A HALLMARK HOLIDAY MOVIE FORMULA:
Homeless lady, lady cop
and lots of loveable dogs
of TheColumnists.com
This is the time of year when syrupy and sentimental made-for-TV movies start turning up. That's because we're in the "holiday season" and TV believes most Americans don't want to look at homicides, scaly monsters or autopsies when the air is full of the scent of roasting turkeys and Christmas trees.
At least not at home in their own living rooms.
And that surely explains The Hallmark Channel's "Accidental Friendship," which is an ultimately cheerful movie about homeless people, stray dogs and frustrated policewomen and their boy friends. What? You don't think that sounds very syrupy and sentinmental> Well, give it a chance to prove itself.
I liked "Accidental Friendship" (Saturday night, 9-11; 8-10 Central) because it has a couple of very likeable dogs in it. I'm a dog-fancier. Does it have enough likeable dogs in it? Well, not really, but I managed to stretch the ones it does have long enough to give the movie a favorable thumbs up.
The story, which is based on a real-life situation, deals with Yvonne Caldwell, a homeless woman in Los Angeles, who has one nice dog on a leash and another that she wheels around in her shopping cart. She lives in an abandoned house and thinks she gets along just fine--that is, until the dog in the cart has puppies and Yvonne starts having serious health problems.
Into the picture steps a young L.A. policewoman, who takes pity on Yvonne and decides to help her out. Trouble is Yvonne has a bad attitude about cops and about accepting charity. So most of the movie is about the policewoman persisting in her efforts to be nice while being bad-mouthed by Yvonne.
Fortunately, the two characters are played by skillful TV actors you probably know from their regular programs. Yvonne is played by Chandra Wilson from ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" and the lady cop is played by Cathleen Munroe from CBS' "CSI: New York." To help things along, the movie also has veteran TV and stage star Ben Vereen ("Roots") on hand as a homeless pal of Yvonne's.
If you're worried that this is going to be a super-sad dog movie, don't let that bother you overmuch. Not all the dogs end well, but things turn out rather happily, even for the pooches.
And if this isn't your sort of movie, you'll be happy to know there are only maybe about a dozen more like it before we start 2009.
Happy Holidays, TV fans.
©2008 by Ron Miller. The photo is courtesy of The Hallmark Channel. This column first posted Nov. 10, 2008.
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