Never did I think that Hallmark made movies other than for Christmas.  It makes sense that they would.  After all, it is primarily known for being a greeting card company, and Christmas is not the only holiday on the calendar.  For a Catholic, the birth of Christ has more significance than does the celebration of St. Valentine’s feast day.  Please note, though that my aim is not to diminish the life of this 3^rd century martyr who, through several twists of history, has leant his name to a day focused on paper mache hearts and chocolate everything else.  That St. Valentine died for the love of God is seldom remarked upon in any of the seasonally appropriate messages proffered by Hallmark or any other outlet.  Their seasonally appropriate film, An Unexpected Valentine (2025) certainly says nothing about this Catholic saint or how he was beaten and beheaded.  Please forgive the obvious snarky joke to be made here, but if you have the misfortune of seeing this movie, you might think such a fate preferable.

It should come as no shock that Hannah’s (Lacey Chabert) preferred holiday is the title one in An Unexpected Valentine.  What makes it so for this chocolate designer are several factors, partially related to the odd fact that she is not a fan of the candy, but mostly due to her unsuccessful romantic life.  However, as she says early on, she “loves love.”  Her feelings might have something to do with her highly successful work.  This year is no different, though I had difficulty the entire film figuring out the nature of her latest creation.  There are purses, that look like they are made of chocolate, but then they are supposed to contain other chocolate?  Whatever they are, her bosses love them, particularly the marketing manager, Annalisa (Caitlin Stryker).  She wants Hannah to come to a special party their company hosts every February 14^th to celebrate their new product line.  Though Hannah just wants to stay home and not mingle after a few uninspiring romances, she is convinced to attend.  Once she gets back to her place and readies herself for the evening, passing somebody being delivered balloons, she gets to the street to meet this cinematic universe’s version of Uber.  While she thought she had ordered a single passenger version, she is surprised that the driver, Finn (Robert Buckley), has three other people in his sport utility vehicle (SUV).  By the way, we have already spent a little time with him, seeing him preparing for a gallery opening that night for his main passion, photography.  Ride sharing is his way of maintaining his starving artists lifestyle.  This includes taking on as many people as possible at times.  As such, she is forced to ride in the very back, but the others soon notice that she is suffering from carsickness.  Without stopping, they all shuffle around to allow her to get in the front.  The others are dropped off before they finally get to her stop.  Before she can get out, she notices that she cannot find her phone.  The helpful Finn searches the vehicle with her.  In addition to locating the cellular device, Hannah also locates an engagement ring.  His first reaction is to bring it to the company for which he drives, which would mean whoever had lost it would not be able to retrieve until the next day at the earliest.  She does not accept this circumstance, telling him they must backtrack through his previous customers in order to ensure that the jewelry gets to its rightful owner.  Because he had been charmed enough by her and her belief in love, he agrees to the quest.  And a quest it is from this point on, one I will go through in a general fashion instead of giving the stop-by-stop account.  In between tracking down the earlier passengers, he must also make some deliveries, and she offers to help with those as well.  All the while there is a ticking clock for each of these two.  As they methodically go to each location and cross off the people with which he has had contact with throughout the course of the day, they are constantly peppered by their respective managers to get to wherever it is they are expected.  One-by-one, each customer says that the bejeweled band does not belong to them.  By the time they get to Hannah’s party, they have gone through what they think are all the candidates.  However, as they are about to depart, Finn remembers an encounter with a mistaken rider, who had mentioned he had been about to go to a fancy restaurant.  Because they are determined to see this mission through, they get there just as he is about to propose.  With that complete, it is time for them to finally get to their separate destinations.  However, once she delivers her winning presentation, and he spends a few moments at the gala, they realize that they miss one another.  She goes outside to try to summon his car, but we see that he had finally received one too many parking tickets, his vehicle being booted.  Instead, he runs to her and they have the long-awaited kiss before the end credits roll.

The finale of An Unexpected Valentine makes it pretty similar to the formula followed by its Christmas cousins.  Selfishly, I would point out that neither of these holidays would be possible without Catholicism, but I have mostly given up on expecting any cinematic acknowledgement of that little known fact.  More to the spirit of the day, I would tell you that love would not be possible without God.  After all, 1 John 4:8 reminds us that “God is love.”  This includes romantic love, or any other form of the verb you can imagine.  Love, by the way, is a verb, and despite the massive amount of cheesiness contained in this film, there are a few nuggets I can use to describe this truth in a Catholic Christian manner.  Arguably the best line comes when Hannah is hemming and hawing over whether she should pursue Finn.  While talking it over with Annalisa, Hannah is asked rhetorically how many great things happen by doing nothing.  Great love requires great gestures, though the greatness of them is open for interpretation.  They can be as big as St. Valentine dying for the Faith, or buying someone a bouquet of roses on that special day.  Further, it is not necessarily the gesture but the intention behind it.  Only God really knows such things, but through Him we can get an idea of the person doing the giving.  My favorite aspect of the film though (aside from when it ended) is when they realize how great a day they have had.  This struck me as a universal truth, though admittedly one that can be found no matter day it is on the calendar.  Ones like Valentine’s Day get a little extra scrutiny because of the pressure we place on ourselves to make it special.  However, in the midst of such pressure, or whether it is not turning out the way we want, we can find the love of God at work in the little things.  This is one Finn and Hannah realize when they make time to take stock of the day they have experienced.  They have brought joy into a number of peoples’ lives, being little Christs if you will, at the expense of some of their own time.  That is a wonderful form of love.

What is significantly less wonderful is An Unexpected Valentine, though it is blessedly short.  My job is to find God at work in such things and explain it to you in ways that you might not notice.  That does not make them good movies a lot of the time, and this one is no exception.