Lack of good storyline.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Danielle Steel's Safe Harbour is your typical love story about two lonely people who find each other's heart and no explanation is given why they fall for each other except that a love story has to be told. The direct-to-video film stars Melissa Gilbert,Brad Johnson and Liana Liberato.The story is about Pip,a once a normal 11-year-old kid with a happy life, but she became very lonely when her father and brother died at a plane crash. Especially her mother Ophelia,played by Gilbert, has trouble dealing with the loss and becomes depressed. While walking on the beach one day, Pip meets Matt,played by Brad Johnson, an artist with a broken heart. She immediately befriends him. Her mother worries about her friendship and suspects Matt of being a pedophile. However, it doesn't take long before Matt wins over Ophelia's heart as well.The End.One good thing about this film is the setting of the story as it takes place in San Francisco as the movie provides scenery of the great city.But still,aside from a clichéd and predictable story,one notable pain to watch is the performance of Melissa Gilbert as Ophelia.She sounded awful as a French woman. It definitely was not one of her best performances in her career.

This story was as well done as any producer could do with a Danielle Steele book - all of which are exactly alike and with no depth. I would not have selected Melissa Gilbert for the lead role because her French accent is not good and she was not convincing in the part. There should have been a lot more development of the "romance" between the two leads --- all of a sudden, they are in love. Not sure how they got there but don't think the one "rescue" scene on the beach made a heroine out of Gilbert. It would be hard, however, to be convincing in any Danielle Steele movie due to the lack of believable development of a good story. I'd much rather see some movies made of Janet Dailey's Calder movies --- you could sure call on Brad Johnson to play some roles here - his role in Safe Harbour was excellent and well played. He has a quiet strength which shines through despite Gilbert's part. Brad Johnson would also be great in any of Dailey's Calder books. I think we need more early 1900 western type honest to goodness cowboy movies.

This movie is a good one but I have a major criticism of this work by Danielle Steele.In the story, a woman who had an affair with her best friend's husband later comes down with terminal cancer. Ms. Steele does a disservice to cancer victims by the woman saying that she was punished with cancer for having the affair. Ms. Steele, cancer does not discriminate. Plenty of wonderful people have succumbed to this curse. It was definitely wrong to state this.As for the story, it is really another "Peyton Place" and it is fairly well done.Congratulations to Melissa Gilbert for her fine French accent. Plenty of problems in this story are well handled by a very good cast.There were a lot of sub-plots here. Am sure that minority groups will not like that the African American did the shooting that nearly took the life of Gilbert. There was a lot of stereotyping here of who makes up the homeless.

This is a typical Steele novel production in that two people who have undergone some sort of tragedy manage to get together despite the odds. I wouldn't call this a spoiler because anyone who has read a Steele novel knows how they ALL end. If you don't want to know much about the plot, don't keep reading.Gilbert's character, Ophelia, is a woman of French decent who has lost her husband and son in an accident. Gilbert needs to stop doing films where she is required to have an accent because she, otherwise a good actress, cannot realistically pull off any kind of accent. Brad Johnson, also an excellent actor, is Matt, who is recovering from a rather nasty divorce. He is gentle, convincing and compelling in this role.The two meet on the beach through her daughter, Pip, and initially, Ophelia accuses Matt of being a child molester just because he talked art with the kid. All of them become friends after this episode and then the couple falls in love.The chemistry between the two leads is not great, even though the talent of these two people is not, in my opinion, a question. They did the best they could with a predictable plot and a script that borders on stereotypical. Two people meet, tragedy, bigger tragedy, a secret is revealed, another tragedy, and then they get together. I wish there was more to it than that, but there it is in a nutshell.I wanted mindless entertainment, and I got it with this. In regard to the genre of romantic films, this one fails to be memorable. "A Secret Affair" with Janine Turner is far superior (not a Steele book), as are some of Steele's earlier books turned into film.