5 out of 5

Directed by: Lynne Stopkewich

You know the drill: some light Postables romance, some Oliver indignance, some happy/sad missing letter totally-not-a-mystery mystery-ness… and if you don’t know the drill, you’ll get it soon enough, because Hallmark shows / movies ain’t exactly known for their complexities.  But you go in with your schmaltz meter ticking, and your personal tolerance levels of melodrama and meet-cute humor and dashes of Christ will determine your enjoyment of whatever it is.  With SSD – a show about a group of Post Office employees who work in the “Dead Letter Office,” figuring out to whom damaged or misplaced letters should be delivered – the scale has certainly swung back and forth, with the post-series TV-movies leaning a bit too heavily on patriotism or sap for even my questionable tastes.  But a couple have been good, and now a couple have been prime examples of what the show can offer when it’s in full motion: enjoyable inter-Postable drama, using our less emotive characters (Rita and Norman) to play out some of the more serious stuff and our more emotionally extreme will-they-ever couple – Oliver and Shane – to deal with the lighter romance, making for a great see-saw balance between the actors and the subject matter; an engaging and rewarding main plot, this time dealing with an exploded letter; and a couple of well wended-in subplots – one regarding Valentines, and one regarding Oliver’s super-secret Postables origin.  Perhaps new director Lynne Stopkewich is responsible for keeping most of the Hallmark nonsense shushed to the borders in favor of focusing on actual plot and characters; perhaps it’s just luck of the draw with the story.  Whatever the case, ‘From the Heart’ is the full embodiment of the charm the series was able to emote in its best episodes, justifiably extended to feature length in order to accommodate its several successful story threads.