Please for the love of retinol in my skincare and all that is holy, will you please let me know in the comments whether you’ve ever inherited something from a long-lost uncle? And I don’t mean the ones you hear from in your spam folder. Those uncles don’t count. I’m talking cold, hard inheritance, in your hands, at whatever rate of taxation your country pretends is fair.
Clearly all of my uncles are duds. My which of course I mean poor. Or, you know, “middle class” (same difference). But in the movies, uncles are wonderful. They make zero demands on you. You may have even forgotten they exist. You let them die alone in their big old houses and then one day you get that jackpot call from a lawyer who’s almost as incredulous as you are. That’s how it happens Chelsea (Lacey Chabert), only her dead uncle’s lawyer spares her even the awkward phone call. One no-nonsense letter later, she’s the proud owner of a property in Vail. Up until this point she’s been a hard-working party planner in Los Angeles but she suffers – well, not exactly a set back, but a disappointment based on a rumour from Larry in the mailroom she only heard about 20 minutes ago. So I’m not sure how close to her heart this sudden hope could really have been, but between that and her new landfall, she quits her job and high-tails it to Vail, a picturesque ski resort town in Colorado.
In Vail she immediately makes friends with all sorts of Vail legends, who all knew her dead uncle of course, but makes an enemy out of the one man she’ll need to rely on, out of a parking dispute of all things. Owen (Tyler Hynes) is a former architect turned handyman, and he’s the only one who can help her restore her uncle’s house into a livable home (turns out he was mid-renovation, and that phone call might have come in handy after all). Though she no longer has an income, Chelsea somehow finds the money to restore plumbing, heating, flooring and more, all the while kitting herself out in more than one new ski ensemble.
Turns out, handyman Owen is actually in town to help his dad stabilize his struggling restaurant, which used to be co-owned by Chelsea’s uncle. Old Vail is being left behind by tourists for newer, fancier more high-end options, and many businesses are failing. Chelsea decides to put her event planning skills and her dead uncle’s recipe to use, co-founding StrudelFest along with Owen to highlight the charm Old Vail still has to offer.
Romantic strudel making ensues. Strudel wooing follows. But when Chelsea’s old boss comes begging for her to come back, what happens to Vail, to her uncle’s house, and to her new something-something with handyman Owen? Guess you’ll have to watch to find out 😉
ASSHOLES WATCHING MOVIES 
My uncle built me a bike one time. He wasn’t long lost. Always late if that helps
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I seem to remember reading a lot of books that started with this kind of inheritance when I was a kid. More often than not the house was haunted, which in my mind was a plus.
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My Uncle Ed is a mean, nasty drunk. Watching him in action was a significant motivation for me to get sober, if only to ensure I don’t carry on his pathetic legacy. That, I suppose, is an unintentional gift from my uncle.
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Of course, a genetic predisposition towards addictions is also an ‘unintentional gift’ so at best we’ll call this one a draw. 😉
But any motivation to get sober is a good one. How sad that this is often the case, that our relatives best role model what NOT to do
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No, my uncle didn’t (or doesn’t) get me anything either, apart from completely inappropriate birthday cards. I really don’t know where he gets them.
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Nope! But I keep hoping (and trying not to be tempted to play the lottery). But I do occasionally give in and do the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes and enter to win HGTV’s Dream Home Sweepstakes, even though it’s not remotely likely that entering twice a day actually increases my chances of a win. LOL!
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Strudel wooing… lol. I gotta try that one
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I KNOW. That killed me, too! Always a laugh to be found with an AWM review.
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Haha! Brilliant. I inherited a ring and some old photos from my grandmother. That’s it. No rich uncle anywhere!
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I wish I could say I’ve inherited something but no, so I guess all the dearly departed in my family have been duds too. None of them were in the mafia either, which I always thought would have been kinda cool. Can’t say I’ve come across this flick but I just checked the cover art on IMDB and my first thought was made-for-TV-slush-movie. The strudeling is interesting though. What’s more interesting is that it gets 7.1 on IMDB, which is far higher than I’d imagined it would be.
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The thing about the 7.1 rating is that it’s a Hallmark movie, so only people who like Hallmark movies are watching it. It doesn’t have a wide audience to bring down the score. Really they should all be 10s!
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Lacey Chabert has her “click.” God bless. File her under Candace Cameron Bure, Mayim Bialik, and Danica McKellar — the stars of all the movies on the TV from Hell channel that I’ll be punished to watch when I get there.
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“The strudeling!” Jay will never live down point that out!
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I met my Uncle — once — as a kid. He came to visit after a trip to Canada and looked like a Mafioso in his flashy suit and overcoat. I was into coin collecting at the time, so he gave me a Canadian (red) $2.00 bill and some change. I’d never seen “foreign money” before or money that wasn’t “green,” so it was pretty big deal.
And haven’t seen or heard from him since. So he is truly long and lost. But I think I got about $3.00 bucks more than you did from your uncle, Jay.
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My family is woefully small, so no long-lost uncles. Well, they’re kinda lost. I haven’t talked to one in 30-ish years (he has two “kids” of his own, so any inheritance would go to them). Although, come to think of it, he might have passed away a few years ago. The other one I follow on Facebook and Twitter. (He found me first.) He mostly posts political diatribes, so we don’t really talk. (We agree politically, so it’s all good.)
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Ack! Just remembered: A classic Sanford & Son episode when Fred’s long-lost Uncle Leotis leaves his “favorite nephew” $1,500 — the catch to collecting it is Fred must fly to St. Louis and oversee the funeral arrangements.Turns out: Fred inherited nothing, the shady lawyer used the full $1,500 for the funeral. Fred flew all that way just to sign the check. So beware of wanting a long-lost uncle to come out of the woodwork, as I am sure we all have a “Leotis” in waiting.
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My Uncle Joe left me money. I was shocked. But I got a letter from my cousin who said I had to send her back the money since the lawyer had to be paid…
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Hahahahahah!
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I hope you didn’t!
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I got some money… not a lot.
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Somewhere on this planet I have three uncles and an aunt, however I haven’t seen any of them since the mid 80’s so they’ve all probably kicked the bucket by now, and no large, or small, amounts of money have come my way. I must conclude that they were as disappointed in me as I was in them. 🙂
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