HEART OF THE MATTER (2025)

Name: HEART OF THE MATTER (2025)
Item: HEART OF THE MATTER (2025)
Author: Review

"Second Chance Romance with an Artsy Twist"

Family Content: +2 Moderately questionable elements.

Entertainment Quality:

	None	Light	Moderate	Heavy
Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

Credits →

What You Need To Know:

HEART OF THE MATTER on UP Faith & Family focuses on April, a high-profile fashion photographer who returns home to visit. She gets involved in an upcoming town art contest. She also sees her high school sweetheart, Luke. Luke is a widower with a young daughter. April and Luke bond over an art project and begin to give romance a second chance. Luke doesn’t want to hold April back from her high-profile career. A miscommunications occurs, and the chances of April and Luke getting together start looking bleak.

HEART OF THE MATTER is a sweet romance with a heartfelt storyline about discovering what you really want in life and the power of second chances. The lack of stakes sometimes makes the plot feel a bit slow, but the movie is a decent romcom with no objectionable content. HEART OF THE MATTER has a strong morally uplifting worldview stressing themes of family, community, and appreciating the simple things in life. Also, Luke is shown to be a dedicated single father, and all the characters are kind and willing to help and encourage each other.

Content:

(BB, PP, M):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:

Strong moral worldview overall celebrates small-town life and stresses themes of family, community, appreciating the simple things in life, and discovering second chances and what you want out of life, plus the male lead is a widower and dedicated single father, and all the characters are kind and willing to help and encourage each other;

Foul Language:

No foul language;

Violence:

No violence ;

Sex:

No sex;

Nudity:

No nudity;

Alcohol Use:

No alcohol use;

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:

No smoking or drugs; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:

Some scenes show female lead’s friend and her husband having a dysfunctional relationship (she is irritated he works so much and doesn’t spend time with her), but they reconcile by the end of the movie.

More Detail:

HEART OF THE MATTER is a light romantic comedy on UP Faith & Family about a high-profile fashion photographer who returns to her hometown and gets drawn into a local art competition as well as a second chance with high school sweetheart Luke. HEART OF THE MATTER is a sweet romance that stresses family and the importance of the small things in life, but the story’s low stakes sometimes make the movie feel slow. The movie has no objectionable content otherwise, however.

The movie follows April, an in-demand fashion photographer who’s just received a dream job offer in Paris. She feels conflicted about the job, however, because she’s been feeling unsettled in her career. So, when a friend calls to ask her to come home for a visit, April jumps at the chance.

Back in her hometown of Belmont Hills, April realizes how much she’s missed small town life. She also immediately runs into her high school sweetheart, Luke, a fellow artist who’s now a furniture maker, widower and father to a daughter named Jess. April tries to stay away from him, blaming him for a broken heart in high school. She throws herself into a new project of photographing all the artists competing in the town’s upcoming centennial art contest.

Eventually, April realizes she must photograph Luke, who’s planning to enter a sculpture in the contest. He’s feeling uninspired ,and Luke’s daughter, Jess, decides to push the pair together, convincing them to collaborate on a project for the competition.

After a brainstorming session and bike ride, Luke gets an idea. He will sculpt a model of a tree that he and April used to spend time under as kids. The pair get to work, enjoying working together and reconnecting after all these years. April encourages Luke to keep pursuing his sculpting work and tells him his work as a furniture maker is still art, just a different form. She also shares her uncertainties about her work as a fashion photographer with Luke. While working together, the pair kiss. April goes home, giddy at the idea of restarting a relationship with Luke. However, Luke is unsure, because he doesn’t want to hold her back from her high-profile career.

A miscommunication occurs, and the chances of April and Luke getting together start looking bleak.

HEART OF THE MATTER is a sweet romance with a heartfelt storyline about discovering what you truly want out of life. However, the lack of action and stakes causes the movie’s plot to feel about slow sometimes.

However, HEART OF THE MATTER has a morally uplifting worldview. It promotes themes of family and collaboration. Also, all the characters are kind and always willing to help each other, and Luke is shown to be a devoted single father. There is no objectionable content in HEART OF THE MATTER.