SUMMER IN THE CITY Writer on Reversing Tropes & Letting the Small Town Girl Win

If you’re a fan of Hallmark Channel movies – and judging by the popularity of our Hallmark coverage, you are – then you’ve probably noticed the same basic plots being repeated over and over. One of the most frequent is the one where the small town girl or boy goes to the big city to pursue their dreams, becomes hardened/cynical/a workaholic/materialistic, then returns home for a holiday/family illness/in disgrace only to rediscover their roots and find true love. Sound familiar?

Screenwriter Gary Goldstein had a different idea: what if the small town girl moves to the big city and succeeds because she stays true to herself?

“There are lot of movies that are about the woman from the small town who moves to the big city, then comes back to the small town with her big city ways – but I wanted to do something different,” Gary said when I spoke to him last week. “This is like Sweet Home Alabama, but in reverse.”

In Summer in the City, Taylor McCall (Julianna Guill) is a young retail clothing store manager who dreams of leaving her small Ohio town to work in the New York fashion industry. One summer day, Alyssa Shaw (Vivica A. Fox), tyrannical owner of A-Line, a trendy  Manhattan boutique, walks into Taylor’s shop and — impressed by her direct approach —hires her to manage her New York store. Unfortunately, living in Manhattan isn’t quite as easy or glamorous as she thought it would be.

“One of my favorite scenes is early in the movie, on Taylor’s first day at work in Manhattan,” Gary said. “She’s at lunch and trying to get a piece of pizza at the pizza parlor, but there are a million people in there, it’s like the Wall Street trading floor, and she just can’t get the guy’s attention behind the counter. Phillip (Marc Bendavid) comes in and sees that she’s having trouble so he asks if he can help her. She says ‘no’. Ultimately he just snaps his fingers and says, ‘Hey Frankie, give me a pie,’ and gets it immediately because he knows the guy. She just walks out. She can not bear it that this guy can get that piece of pizza but she can’t figure it out, and that’s how they meet. I love that moment – you see the frustration of living with a million people.”

After meeting Phillip, life in Manhattan does begin to get easier for Taylor. He works in real estate and helps her navigate the tricky task of finding a place to live as well as how to live in Manhattan. At the same time, the pressure is on for Taylor to make the clothing store profitable by any means possible.

“Little by little she realizes she can’t become one of them, she has to stay true to herself,” Gary said. “She learns to navigate this tougher but rewarding world. By staying true to herself and what worked for her in Ohio, she helps this clothing store succeed.”

Along the way, Taylor inspires both Phillip and Alyssa to take some risks and follow their own dreams.

“That’s what I hope people takeaway from watching this movie,” Gary said, “you have to stay true to yourself and not become someone else to succeed, but you also have to take the risks.”

Summer in the City premieres Saturday, August 13 at 9/8c on The Hallmark Channel as part of the network’s Summer Nights series.