By Mallory Mattingly
Betty Sullivan, who wrote the screenplay for the new Prime Video romcom LOVE IN STORYTOWN, revealed how faith and small town Tennessee inspired the movie.
“A widowed Army major leaves the military to move to Jonesborough, TN, with her 10-year-old son for a settled life at her mother’s bed and breakfast. She’s living her dream of opening a bakery in the Storytelling Capital of the World. When she reconnects with a childhood friend she spent summers with, it becomes clear he’s her happily ever after,” a synopsis of the movie reads, per IMDB.
Sullivan shared how a trip to Jonesborough 15 years ago partly inspired the project.
“And so in my head, I said, ‘I have to do something in this town.’ And then later, during COVID, nobody was making movies, and I wrote the script. And rom-coms are cheap to make, generally. But I wanted to be authentic,” she told Movieguide® in an interview.
“And I had a woman at work who was a veteran, and she had two young kids, and her transition was hard. She struggled,” Sullivan recalled. “And so all those things went together, and the guy who was the director of the Storytelling Center was a conflict resolution guy. He went to the gangs and tried to help people do that. So I got the male lead to have that as a job because, in a movie, there has to be conflict.”
She revealed that the movie is “really about trust, really about trusting God and yourself.”
LOVE IN STORYTOWN premiered at Jonesborough’s Jackson Theatre on April 12 with a sold-out showing. It stars Beverley Mitchell, Jason Frederick, Ryan Buggle and Eliza Roberts. It is distributed by BGM-Global.
Sullivan added that Mitchell’s character, Amy, took cues from the character of Martha in the Bible.
“She wants to get things done, and she has to learn the trust,” she told Movieguide® of the character, “and that’s what we struggle [with] as Christians is we want to please God, and sometimes we’re doing works instead of enjoying life and seeing all the blessings that we have.”
Movieguide® praised LOVE IN STORYTOWN’s “Very strong Christian, moral worldview” with themes that celebrate small town America. Part of the review reads:
LOVE IN STORYTOWN has a sweet and wholesome romance, but a low production budget. The movie’s plot is simple, and the light performances are sweet and will engage viewers. LOVE IN STORYTOWN has a strong Christian, moral worldview with pro-capitalist and pro-American values promoting faith, prayer, family, community, and military service. However, Mandy’s son withheld the truth to his mother to protect her feelings and was briefly bullied, but that was quickly resolved. LOVE IN STORYTOWN is suitable entertainment for the whole family to watch, with a few giggles and laughs.
LOVE IN STORYTOWN is available to stream on Prime Video.
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