Love on the Danube: Kissing Stars is the final film in the Hallmark Channel Love on the Danube trilogy of movies that all take place aboard a river cruise in Europe. Using real locations along the way, these romances all feature strangers who fall in love while aboard the ship. In Kissing Stars, the ship is host to a floating rom-com convention known as KissCon, where fans get to meet their favorite romance stars. Sarah Power plays Savannah, a publicist hired to wrangle one of the more difficult actors on the ship and, despite the initial tension between them, you can bet that love is in the air.
Opening Shot: Savannah Bailey (Sarah Power) waits for her boss to arrive to a morning breakfast meeting. She gets a call from her friend Teddy (Kathryn Drysdale), and Savannah tells Teddy she’s excited, she expects her boss to announce she’s getting a promotion at breakfast.
The Gist: Unfortunately, the next line in the script was something like: “CUT TO: SAVANNAH CARRIES A BOX OF HER BELONGINGS AFTER UNEXPECTEDLY GETTING LAID OFF.” Savannah calls Teddy back to tell her the bad news, and Teddy, who we’ve seen in the previous two Love on the Danube films as the cruise director, offers Savannah a temporary gig working at LoveCon, a cruise where fans get to mingle with rom-com stars. (Is this whole franchise a backdoor pitch for a real Hallmark cruise? I wouldn’t NOT go on that.) So Savannah, who has no other plans, agrees to help wrangle talent on the cruise, and heads to Budapest.
The first person Savannah meets when she gets off the plane is Tripp Nelson (Brendan Penny) – Savannah doesn’t recognize him, but he’s one of the biggest stars on the cruise. He’s, of course, a jerk to her, assuming she’s a fan who wants a selfie and just brushing her off. He continues to act coldly toward her even once he realizes she’s working on the cruise and there to help. It turns out, Tripp loves acting but hates that his privacy is non-existent… it’s a daily struggle for him to deal with fans, the media, and a life of glitz.
Savannah proves a good listener, and they find common ground talking about their personal lives, acting as sounding boards for each other. But tension arises when the man running KissCon, Liam, tells Savannah she’s not good for Tripp’s image since she’s a nobody, and he even fires her from the cruise when Savannah causes Tripp to miss a scheduled event onboard. This causes some drama between Tripp and Savannah, but don’t worry, at LoveCon, no one is going to leave with a broken heart.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of? Love on the Danube: Kissing Stars takes the general plot of Notting Hill – celeb falls for non-famous person – and Hallmark-ifies it.
Our Take: I was a little salty in my review of Love on the Danube: Royal Getaway, writing that perhaps this didn’t need to be a trilogy and one trip down the Danube was enough. Because while the European backdrop was a nice way to mix up the Hallmark formula, there was nothing truly original in that film that made it stand out. I changed my tune with Love on the Danube: Kissing Stars, maybe because this cast gelled more, or maybe because Liam (played by actor Jonny Weldon) proved such a sneering, antagonistic foil for both Savannah and Tripp that he really made me want to root for them harder, but either way, Kissing Stars felt like a more successful piece of the trilogy. (I also really loved the idea of LoveCon, a rom-com convention, but I wished that Hallmark really blew that out more by featuring some of their own actors as themselves. The Santa Class, one of my favorite Hallmark Christmas movies last year, used a cameo from Paul Campbell – playing himself – to hilarious effect, and I can’t help but think that the same kind of ploy would have been incredible here.)
While there is nothing truly remarkable about Kissing Stars, Brendan Penny’s rugged nice guy, Tripp, and Sarah Powers’ Savannah worked well together – not quite opposites (in fact, they realize they’re very similar after all), their rapport feels realistic and remained the focus of the film, rather than taking a backseat to the locations. By integrating the rom-com cruise as a part of the plot, even if there weren’t clever cameos, the film was able to be self-referential and meta as it predicted its own happy ending.
Parting Shot: “One more kiss on the Danube?” Tripp asks Savannah ask they disembark the ship. “The perfect ending,” she replies, and they kiss as the camera pans over the river, a fitting close for the film and the entire trilogy.
Performance Worth Watching: British actress Kathryn Drysdale, who plays Teddy, has a more prominent role in this film than she does in the previous two and maybe it was that increased screen time that made me realize she’s Genevieve the French seamstress from Bridgerton. I truly didn’t put it together until now. Kudos to her for pulling off a new accent and a whole different vibe that rendered her unrecognizable for most of the journey.
Memorable Dialogue: “Being a shy guy from a small town, fame can kind of mess with your head,” Tripp tells Savannah, explaining why he’s so squeamish about the limelight.
Our Call: Love on the Danube: Kissing Stars was a satisfying way to wrap up this trilogy we’ve already spent a few hours with, and while the trilogy itself felt a little uneven, this final installment was worth it. STREAM IT.
Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.
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