Advanced Review: Hallmark Channel’s Lead With Your Heart

Change is hard for everyone…

Especially for Ben Walker in the new Hallmark Channel made-for-TV movie Lead With Your Heart.

This telefilm, the first in a long line of made-for-TV movies to be presented by the family friendly network starting this Saturday and running until Valentine’s Day, focuses on Ben and Maura Walker (William Baldwin from Backdraft and Kari Matchett from Covert Affairs), a seemingly happily married couple with two grown children: Lacey (Amy Forsyth from Defiance) who is already in college and Adam (relative newcomer Steven Love) who is set to graduate from high school.

It is made clear that Ben and Maura have been married for over 20 years and deeply love each other, but with their soon-to-be empty nest fast approaching, it would seem that the happy couple has become a bit stagnant.

So stagnant that they actually forget their own wedding anniversary and then their relationship is tested when Maura, who works as a Branch Manager at their small town bank, an opportunity to go to nearby big-city Minneapolis to fill a void at the main branch for the manager there who is going on maternity leave.

This temporary move, obviously, creates a rift between Maura and Ben – the latter of whom works as the Supervisor at the local Parks and Recreation office in their small town; a town for which he does not want to leave. So when Maura is offered the position at the main branch permanently, well, you can imagine that things get a little dicey.

But, this is a Hallmark Channel movie and it does have an expected happy ending, but the path that both Maura and Ben have to take to get their relationship back on even footing – with some assistance from their kids – is interested to see. Their solutions to their marital woes are touching and heartfelt and the final scenes are pleasing.

Make sure to check out Lead With Your Heart when it debuts on Hallmark Channel this Saturday, September 19 at 9/8c.