According to Maltin, Aurora Borealis is a movie saved from melodrama by strong performances. I say it’s just an average soap opera with a seriously overqualified cast. Obvs, I win because this is my blog.

The story is on the slight side. A handsome young man with great hockey promise gives up the sport and most other ambitions at 15 when his father dies. He bounces from crappy job to crappy job in perma-frozen Minneapolis, squabbling with his school chums and watching his grandfather slowly succumb to dementia.

As luck would have it, grandpa has a pretty home health care worker who takes a shine to our protagonist. Their predictably adorable romance slowly helps him see a larger world for himself, allowing him to stop letting his douchey brother use his apartment for extramarital assignations and consider helping gramps kill himself. Then everything turns out just like you’d expect.

It’s not a terrible film, but it is often treacly and heavy-handed. It’s probably kinder to think of it as a better-than-expected Hallmark movie than a disappointing feature. There’s no reason to rush out and see it unless your air conditioning goes out and you want to stare at snow for a couple hours.