Review

Absolutely Devoted to You
Subtitle: When reuniting a boy band is the career opportunity of a lifetime and falling for the lead singer is apparently part of the job description.

Absolutely Devoted to You takes everything we love about Hallmark movies and asks an important question: What if getting promoted at work required resurrecting a 1990s boy band?

Kaitlin is an ambitious television producer who has a very reasonable career goal: become an executive producer. Derrick, meanwhile, is the former lead singer of Absolutely Yeah!, a wildly successful boy band that has apparently been hiding from the public long enough for everyone to become nostalgic about them.

Naturally, Kaitlin decides the perfect way to impress her bosses is to reunite the band.

Because nothing says “executive leadership material” like tracking down a former boy-band heartthrob and convincing him to sing his greatest hits again.

Unfortunately for Kaitlin, Derrick has moved on from his pop-star days and is now working at a community center. He has absolutely no interest in getting back on stage, which is inconvenient because Kaitlin's entire career plan depends on him doing exactly that.

So the two strike a deal. Kaitlin helps promote the community center's summer variety show, and Derrick considers participating in the reunion.

And, as every experienced Hallmark holiday movies viewer knows, this is approximately 14 minutes away from becoming a romantic relationship.

The professional arrangement quickly turns into the classic Hallmark progression: reluctant cooperation, unexpected chemistry, heartfelt conversations, nostalgic memories, and several moments where two people stare at each other long enough that everyone watching knows exactly where this is going.

There is also a delightful layer of 1990s boy-band nostalgia. Apparently, all it takes to bring former teen idols back into the spotlight is enough public enthusiasm, a television special, and one producer who refuses to accept the word “no.”

Derrick's transformation from reluctant former pop star to enthusiastic community-center guy is particularly Hallmark-approved. He's traded stadiums for summer programs, screaming fans for children, and presumably giant backstage dressing rooms for folding chairs.

And Kaitlin has her own lesson to learn: maybe climbing the corporate ladder isn't quite as satisfying when the person you've been using as a career stepping stone turns out to be the person you actually care about.

Absolutely Devoted to You is exactly the sort of movie that makes Hallmark movies so reliably entertaining. It's sweet, predictable, nostalgic, romantic, and completely unconcerned with whether its plot would survive a serious HR investigation.

By the end, you may not remember exactly how the boy-band reunion came together, but you'll remember the important things: the music, the romance, the community center, the career dilemma, and the universal Hallmark belief that every professional problem can be solved with enough teamwork and a well-timed romantic confession.