Two-time SAG Award-winning actor Kiernan Shipka (Sally Draper on “Mad Men”) stars with Emmy® nominee Kellie Martin (“Life Goes On”) and Simon Kassianides (“Quantum of Solace”) in “Smooch,” a Hallmark Channel original movie world premiere, Feb. 5 (9 p.m. ET/PT, 8 p.m. CT).
The movie is an updated loosely-based, live-action homage to a Brothers Grimm short story — “The Frog King” — in which a hapless Prince is turned into a frog by a witch’s cruel charm. He must convince a Princess to take him home and treat him like a king. Reluctantly, she does, and on the third day, the Princess awakens to find that her kindness has transformed the frog into a handsome Prince, and the pair lives happily ever after.
In “Smooch,” Shipka plays “Zoe,” a young girl obsessed by fairy tales and happy endings who is searching for the perfect man for her widowed mother Gwen (Martin). It is Zoe’s belief in a frog’s potential charm that compels her to abduct one from her middle school science class, carrying him to Golden Gate Park in a water-filled lunchbox where she intends to set him free. Having skipped class, Zoe is surprised to see another schoolmate at the park, and in her anxiety, accidentally loses her green friend into a pond. As she surveys the scene, a male monarch (Kassianides) in full royal regalia and who was mugged the night before, appears in a dinghy. The dazed prince, sporting a goose egg on his head, has little memory of who he is or how he got into such a predicament. But he is in luck. Zoe knows precisely how this fairytale ends.
“Smooch” is produced by Beantown Ranch Entertainment in association with Silver Screen Pictures. Howard Burkonsand Brenda Friend arethe executive producers. Robert Bloomingdale,Kyle Clark and Lina Wongare co-executive producers. Rick Arredondo is the producer. Ron Oliver directed from a script written by Howard Burkonsand Terry Spencer Hesser.
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