Stream It Or Skip It: ‘His & Hers’ on the Hallmark Channel Is A Wry Comedy About Married Lawyers Representing A Vapid Reality TV Couple Who’s Seeking A Divorce

The new Hallmark Channel rom-com His & Hers stars network fan faves Lacey Chabert and Brennan Elliott as married lawyers hired to represent a divorcing reality TV couple. But rather than testing their own marriage, the case solidifies their relationship and ultimately makes them realize how lucky they are to have one another.

HIS & HERS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Establishing shots of New York City. A woman (Lacey Chabert) in a red power dress walks into a conference room of her office and declares, “Let’s get started.” A man in a suit (Brennan Elliott) walks into a different conference room and says, “Alright, are you ready to get started?”

The Gist: His & Hers stars Chabert and Elliott as married lawyers Dana and Mark Chernich; they are both peppy and perky (a la Rob Lowe’s character Chris Traeger from Parks & Recreation), always positive and looking for the bright side of things. They converse using lawyer-speak, as when they bring up their pet peeves by referring to them as items on a docket that need clearing. They’re basically just good-natured cornballs who are also very good lawyers.

One day they are each hired, separately, by Tabby and Brett Noble (Stephanie Bennett and Clayton James), a famous couple known for the reality TV shows that have chronicled their lives since they were teens, who are in the midst of a bitter, public divorce. If Dana and Mark represent some kind of schmoopy couple stereotype, Tabby and Brett are caricatures of vacant 21st century pseudo-celebrities. They only care about things like green juice and LED light therapy and leg day. And they both want to take each other DOWN.

Since Mark and Dana are consummate professionals, they don’t reveal their new clients to one another until eventually it becomes inevitable. But just because they’re happily married and each of their clients wants to rip the other’s throat out and take them for all their worth doesn’t mean things need to get contentious with their legal counsel, right?

As they two legal teams work against each other, Dana and Mark start to learn things about one another that they never knew thanks to background checks and being forced to discuss personal subjects that have never come up before. While it seems at first like heir case might throw into question their own relationship and whether their perfect-seeming relationship has all been a facade, things never get too dire. Because when it comes down to it, working with these reality stars makes them realize how lucky they are to have each other.

Our Take: His & Hers is, it turns out, the exact kind of comfort comedy many of us are looking for at the end of a long day when you want to turn your brain off. And I mean that in the very best way. While it seems at first like the two leads are going to be suffocatingly sweet and cutesy for the whole movie, it turns out they’re both actually really funny and are the perfect foils for the over-the-top reality couple they’re paired with. In one scene, Lacey Chabert even gets the chance to make a very funny prank phone call that gives shades of Gretchen Weiners in Mean Girls during the famous four-way phone call.

Just when you think there’s going to be actual relationship drama between Mark and Dana when their secrets start spilling out, that friction doesn’t last long and the actors clearly seem to relish getting to play up the absurdity of their situation. The movie doesn’t only focus on the relationship between Mark and Dana though, there’s also a clever twist when we learn that Brett and Tabby made up their entire divorce to sell their latest reality show.

With so many legal dramas out there in the world, this movie is making me wonder why we don’t have more legal comedies. The movie has the cozy charm that’s baked into most Hallmark movies, but an elevated sense of humor – something that can elude many Hallmark movies – filled with jokes that Elliott and Chabert execute perfectly.

Parting Shot: It’s one year later. Mark and Dana have both quit their law firms and started a new firm together. Partners for life. We see what it’s like inside their new office and when Dana stands, we see that she’s pregnant. Mark puts his hand over Dana’s belly and declares, “You feel that? It’s a prosecutor!”

Performance Worth Watching: Clayton James, who plays Brett, is exceptionally good as the vapid, seemingly empty-headed reality doofus who actually is (slightly) more substantive than he seems. But his take on the “bi-coastal bro” archetype adds a genuinely funny element to the film.

Memorable Dialogue: “We’re on a hiatus. We’re just looking for the right fit for us in the current, flailing, content environment,” reality star Tabby tells Dana, describing her life with Brett.

Our Call: STREAM IT. I OBJECT to anyone who doesn’t think this movie is an absolute delight. Is the premise of two lovey-dovey lawyers who constantly speak in legalese to one another pretty stupid? Totally. Is it played here with a wink and complete self-awareness that makes the movie a smarter-than-you’d-expect comedy? For sure. More than just a charming romance, the film is a comedy that delivers real laughs.

Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.