Stars Fell on Alabama

There’s nothing like a high school reunion to make you revisit your bucket list and notice that there’s an unchecked box to get married and have kids. Stars Fell on Alabama is the quintessential rom-com plot of bringing your movie star client to your high school reunion because you need a date or else be ridiculed by classmates from 15 years ago. Successful Hollywood agent, Bryce Dixon (James Maslow), and his client, a starlet on the verge of making it big, Madison Belle (Ciara Hanna), immediately connect on the farcical weekend, as just friends but realize they have chemistry because “your heart knows things that your mind can’t explain.”

Although the film is supposed to be set in Alabama, it mainly takes place in Beaufort, South Carolina, which with its Palmetto trees lining its iconic Bay Street, works just fine as a background for a couple to fall in love and cause a bit of trouble. Bryce, also known as “Dixie,” is very tight with his high school friends even though he has not returned home in over a decade. As southerners do, he is chastised for his lack of southern protocol. However, Madison comes to his rescue and plays her part, as she is an actress bursting on the scene, but secretly desires the role she is playing. Bryce gives Madison the Alabama code of “God, country, and football,” but not necessarily in that order, to start off their weekend in Willow Valley.

“Bryce…is chastised for his lack of southern protocol. However, Madison comes to his rescue…”

Driving a monster red pick-up truck, drinking, line dancing, and breaking into the high school’s pool at midnight ensue, along with naughty kisses, bad pranks, and a pet tortoise named Bear—is this a thing, now? As the couple gets to know each other, in comes Zane (Zebedee Row), Madison’s rock star ex-boyfriend, to push the pressure up a notch, making his intentions clear that he is not letting go of her. By the by, all of this is played out on a football field. At the big moment, the reunion night where Bryce and Madison are dressed to the nines, Zane not only pulls Madison up on stage to sing “Stars Fell on Alabama,” he also proposes to her, leaving Bryce no choice but to come clean in public. There, on stage with his big confession followed by a big Hollywood kiss with Madison, Bryce fulfills his bucket list.

Stars Fell on Alabama is a feel-good movie with a familiar plot with some seemingly awkward characters, although not all that impressionable. There are some interesting split screens and screen wipes that occur throughout to pass the time, especially in the drinking sequences, which give it an odd, indie feel for a split-second. There’s also a moody moment or two on Main Street where Madison is having a personal, emotional bout because of her dueling boyfriends, which Hanna plays well. She is likable. Expect all the wackiness of a small-town high school reunion, within reason, and a bit of southern coy, which could have used a pinch more of evil, in Stars Fell on Alabama and enjoy its country music soundtrack and the nostalgia for the song “Stars Fell on Alabama,” which is about a spectacular meteor shower seen in the skies of Alabama in 1833.