Undescribable Perfection

Strong and Moving!

Admirable film.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

A pleasant, harmless story in which a good-hearted young political campaigner abandons a faltering relationship to spend time in a small, friendly New England town where everyone knows everyone - and ends up finding everything he needs and wants there, and stays - and the town is glad to have him. Another satisfying tale in which the 'ordinary people' and conservation, come out on top, over 'development' and the interests of 'big business'. Just one very small point from the film - some scholars now think Christopher Columbus (name anglicized) was not 'Italian' (ie Genoese) at all, but was originally Catalan, hailing from Aragon in NE Spain.

Jesse Metcalfe stars in Fairfield Road and revives the Frank Capra idea of the small town idealistic hero. Jimmy Stewart never did a better job with Bedford Falls than Jesse does in saving a small Massachusetts coastal town in this made for TV film.Things really go out from under Metcalfe as the film opens. He leaves his job working on the campaign of Maria Ricossa the Mayor of Boston and then a prospective job working for a US Senator blows up in his face. Adding insult to injury his engagement to his fiancé Natalie Brown also goes South when he finds her cheating on him.With wedding ring in hand he goes off to where they were going to spend their honeymoon, a small New England Cape Cod village at Derek McGrath's small inn. He's persuaded to stay both by the charm of the place and the bookstore owner Natalie Linska.Since politics is his bag, Metcalfe gets intrigued also by the current election for town supervisor. McGrath is a candidate, but he's a heavy underdog against Brandon Firla, one alpha male type developer who wants to build a strip mall there. The whole character of the town would be changed if that came to pass. And Firla is also a truly hateful being.Metcalfe's speech to the town at their meeting where they personally choose their supervisor is right out of Frank Capra. But that's something that never goes out of style. Need I tell you the result.Fairfield Road was a truly pleasant viewing experience. Jesse Metcalfe brought some of this same idealism into playing Christopher Ewing in the unfortunately canceled Dallas. I hope he does more roles of this type.Frank Capra and Jimmy Stewart would be proud.

Let's roll out mom and apple pie. This is the typical feel-good movie which is ripe from clichés.Noah, 32 and a rising star has everything going for him. Suddenly, it's downward even faster than Lillian Roth's life in "I'll Cry Tomorrow." Without illness, his senate job fizzles when the senator is forced out due to corruption and his fiancée has been cheating on him-big time.He finds happiness in a small town off Cape Cod while getting into local politics. At home, he is needed to come back and manage the faltering campaign of the female mayor, who seems to have lost touch with the voters.The story is interesting; however, you can predict quickly what's going to happen. The ending is so contrived when he makes his pitch for the elderly candidate running against someone who wants to expand the town for his own personal gain. A groundswell of support earns him the nomination for the job of town supervisor. He did this even faster than Loretta Young in 1947's "The Farmer's Daughter." Of course, there is the young girl in the town who immediately becomes his new romantic interest.It's all so nice, but too sugary for our tastes.

Noah MacManus is a rising young politician, but when the Boston politician he is an aide to melts down in the middle of an election, the U.S. Senator he is set to work for gets caught in a scandal and the woman he has been engaged to for eight seconds cheats on him, he winds up on Cape Cod with his dog and finds love and purpose.There's little that's wrong in this by-the-numbers TV romcom, except for a lack of good jokes. Everyone is good looking, everyone speaks their lines and does a decent job acting, and Toronto in Canada stands in nicely for a picturesque small town in Massachussetts. The whole effect is a decent enough time-waster for the Hallmark Channel, if little more. Still, visually it's pleasant enough and if your attention wanders for a minute or two, you won't be terribly confused when you start watching again.