PROVIDENCE FALLS: CHANCE OF A LIFETIME

Name: PROVIDENCE FALLS: CHANCE OF A LIFETIME
Item: PROVIDENCE FALLS: CHANCE OF A LIFETIME
Author: Review

"Follow Orders from Heaven or Follow Your Heart?"

Family Content: -2 Extreme caution for older teenagers and adults.

Entertainment Quality:

	None	Light	Moderate	Heavy
Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

Credits →

What You Need To Know:

PROVIDENCE FALLS: CHANCE OF A LIFETIME on the Hallmark Channel is part of a trilogy from three novels about two star-crossed lovers. Two hundred years ago, an angry Irish mob was chasing Liam and Cora when Cora fell and died. Now, Cora is a police detective working on a jewelry store robbery. Liam is her assistant. Two angels have told Liam that, in order to get to Heaven, he must make sure Cora ends up with Finn, the Assistant District Attorney. Liam still loves Cora, however. Will he follow his angelic orders from Heaven or follow his own heart?

PROVIDENCE FALLS: CHANCE OF A LIFETIME is a thrilling mix of a modern-day mystery, historical romance and time-travel fantasy. However, its Christian, moral content is combined with some Romantic, Non-Christian elements. For example, the movie stresses community, helping others, justice, forgiveness, and redemption, with references to Heaven and angels. In contrast to this, Cora often shares the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s belief that people are born essentially good but corrupted by society. Thus, PROVIDENCE FALLS: CHANCE OF A LIFETIME merits extreme caution.

Content:

(PaPa, BB, CC, RoRo, FR, V, S, A, M):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:

A mixed worldview; the episode emphasizes moral themes, such as the importance of community (ex. Cora’s community center group for teens), as well as redemption and forgiveness for past actions (ex. Liam has received a second chance at life to right the wrongs of the past, Cora is focused on giving juvenile criminals another chance and put them on a better path), and features some Christian elements, like angels and heaven; however, there is also a heavy Romantic worldview, and the episode’s plot focuses on mixed concepts like fate and destiny, and characters discuss French philosopher Rousseau’s idea that people are born essentially good, but corrupted by society;

Foul Language:

No foul language, but there are two references to “H-E-double-hockey-sticks”;

Violence:

Light violence with no blood includes a woman dies when she falls from a cliff, and a man is punched in one scene;

Sex:

No sex scenes, but it’d mentioned in scenes set in the 1800s that a man has an affair with a married woman;

Nudity:

No nudity;

Alcohol Use:

A few scenes feature social drinking;

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:

No smoking or drugs; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:

A character in the 1800s is a thief, and a few scenes show him and his partner in the process of breaking into houses to steal, a teenager and his stepfather try to hack a gas station credit card reader to steal the information, but it’s later revealed the stepfather forced the boy to do so, and the stepfather later lies and says the boy wasn’t with him, to save the teenager from getting into trouble.

More Detail:

PROVIDENCE FALLS: CHANCE OF A LIFETIME on the Hallmark Channel is the first movie in a trilogy based on three books. It tells the story of Cora, a lead police detective who’s been having strange dreams of a long-ago past in Ireland, and a man named Liam, with whom she’s in love. Unknown to her, these dreams are memories of a past life, and she and Liam, and many of their friends, are reliving the past, unless Liam, who is aware of their past together, can change their fates.

In CHANCE OF A LIFETIME, Cora is having mysterious dreams where an 1800s version of herself and a thief named Liam are running from an angry mob in Ireland. As they flee, Cora falls and dies, which is where modern-day Cora awakes.

Instead of thinking about her dreams, Cora focuses on her job. She’s a newly-promoted lead detective working on a series of robberies. The latest? A jewelry store. As she gets to work on the case, Cora connects with Finn, the assistant DA, a handsome man who’s clearly interested in her.

Elsewhere, Liam wakes up in a strange white room. Two angels tell him they’re in charge of the “Department of Destiny.” Due to his actions in the past, Liam has been in limbo for the last 200 years. Now, he’s given the chance to leave limbo and go to Heaven, but only if he helps bring about the fate he interrupted all those years ago. Instead of falling in love with Liam, Cora needs to fall in love with Finn.

Liam agrees and is sent to the present, where he’s now a police officer assisting Cora on the jewelry store robbery. Liam and Cora initially clash but they soon warm to each other. This causes Liam to feel conflicted. He knows he must push Cora towards Finn, but he also can’t help feeling his own love for Cora.

Things grow more complicated after someone is murdered, and Liam is seen as the prime suspect. Liam realizes that, as the same scenario took place in Ireland all those years ago, history is repeating itself.

He is eventually cleared of any suspicion, as Cora finds evidence that places him elsewhere at the time of the murder, but Liam now understands that if he doesn’t make sure she and Finn end up together, Cora will die, just as she did in the past. However, Cora has realized she has feelings for Liam and tells him so.

Will Liam continue to follow his angelic orders from Heaven to push Cora toward her ordained fate, or will he choose to follow his own heart?

PROVIDENCE FALLS: CHANCE OF A LIFETIME is a thrilling mix of a modern-day mystery, historical romance and time-travel fantasy. The romantic leads, Katie Stevens and Lachlan Quarmby, have an electric chemistry. Their characters’ story keeps viewers engaged and enhance their desire to watch the next two movies.

CHANCE OF A LIFETIME has some Christian, moral elements stressing community, helping others, justice, forgiveness, and redemption, with references to Heaven and angels; however, the movie also has strong Romantic content, for example, the main storyline revolves around the concepts of fate and destiny, also, Cora (both her past and modern-day versions) frequently talks about the French philosopher Rousseau, sharing his Romantic ideas that people are born essentially good but corrupted by society. Finally, the reference to past lives suggests some form of reincarnation, though the end goal is to be in Heaven by fixing a previous wrong. So, MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution.