Hallmark Movies

My Argentine Heart

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Back at the Estancia

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I got so caught up in the financial complications of this one that I didn’t pay full attention to the more important parts, namely the romance, the scenery, and our heroine Abril’s Boston/career v. Argentina/man dilemma.

Abril, Julie Gonzalo, is a business consultant whose reputation in the industry was ruined by almost driving a multi-billion dollar company into bankruptcy. She’s actually famous as a cautionary tale and is unemployable in her field. When her cousin calls her from Argentina, she tells her she has gotten an offer to buy their ranch they inherited from their grandparents. Belinda is tired of trying to run it on her own and wants to pursue her dream of owning a restaurant.  Abril prefers to have the ranch in her hip pocket as a possible vacation or retirement home, even though she hasn’t visited in years and years since she was 18.  She hotfoots it to Argentina to see if there is a way to keep the ranch and still allow Belinda to achieve her restaurant dream. If she can work some financial wizardry, maybe she can punch up her resume and get a job again. When she arrives, she finds out it is her former boyfriend who has made the below-market but fair offer for the ranch. She is having none of that. Diego has given up his finance career in Mexico City to return to the soil and find his soul by owning the ranch that his ancestors have been caretakers of for generations. While going over the financials, Abril discovers an old loan which has never been repaid. Belinda explains that the loan had been sold and then resold and she doesn’t even know who owns the loan now and that whoever owns it has never asked for payment. She was advised to just forget about it. Rest assured that this will eventually come back to bite them. Abril looks for investors so she and Belinda can retain ownership and keep from selling it to Diego.  She discloses the loan to an interested party, as she is legally and ethically bound to do, and he ends up finding the loan, buying it, and asking for immediate payment or else he will take over the ranch and they will get nothing. Now faced with a common enemy, Diego and Abril end their hostilities and start working together, etc., etc. She wishes she had just sold the ranch to Diego especially since Belinda really and truly wants nothing to do with it anymore.

So many questions. First off could a bank do that? The answer is yes, depending on the original terms of the loan. But they cannot demand late payment penalties like they are doing. Belinda and Abril’s lawyer, a very handsome guy and really nice and Belinda’s love interest, threatens to tie the whole thing up in court. To avoid that, the bank offers to forgive the loan if they sell them the ranch for a fraction of its worth, much below Diego’s offer. At no time are we told the amounts of Diego’s offer, the size of the loan, the income from the ranch, its fair market value, or what the bank offered for the ranch. So it was all very murky. Abril contacts a former colleague in America who owes her a solid about investing in the ranch. He doesn’t want to do that, but offers Abril a position in his company with a high salary because he feels partially responsible for Abril’s reputation being ruined and being a pariah in the industry. Abril is ecstatic because that “solves everything.”  Diego and Belinda are confused, as was I, but Abril explains that now that she has a steady income, she does not have to rely on her savings to keep body and soul together while she is unemployed. Along with her savings, if she sells her condo, she can personally pay off the loan, and then she and Belinda can accept Diego’s offer to buy the ranch.  Belinda and Diego point out to this double MBA in Finance that the loan is twice as much as Abril would get back from the sale. But Abril assures them that it is “not about the money”. I thought Belinda should have at least offered her a share in her restaurant-to-be but she doesn’t. On the other hand, has poor Belinda ever been compensated by Abril for doing all the work running the ranch? Just a random thought. Later Abril suggests to Diego that maybe they could be partners and run the ranch together (she, remotely, from Boston) and she gets a big “No”. He does not want to share.

 So if I figure correctly, Abril loses her share of the ranch plus half of all her savings and the sale price of her condo. “You’re investing $10 to get back $5!” She has to find a new and cheaper place while working for a company which offered her a job out of guilt. But that’s OK because she has the satisfaction of helping her cousin achieve her dream and knowing that her family ranch will be in the hands of someone who will preserve its legacy and not in the hands of a greedy bank. Methinks Abril got the short end of the stick, and I really wouldn’t encourage her to put this on her resume. On her way back to Boston, in a considerably worse financial situation than when she left, Diego enters stage left at the Iguazú Falls, to save the day. He has had a think, and decides that he has been too proud and will now let Abril be his partner in the ranch instead of paying her the cash as long as she stays there with him in Argentina. He loves her, she loves him, and Abril decides that is a fine idea and they kiss.

Juan Pablo Di Pace, who played Diego, was very handsome and charismatic and Julie Gonzalo has never looked lovelier. They were both born in Argentina and were pretty good together. The rest of the cast were all local actors, and they were all great. The Argentinian setting was interesting and beautiful. It all looked pretty authentic to me, except their gaucho clothes looked a little costume-y. But I felt like Abril thoughtlessly discounted Belinda’s desire to sell the Ranch and Diego rubbed me the wrong way as well. He was inflexible and stubborn off and on throughout most of the movie in addition to that chip of class warfare on his shoulder. At the end of the day, the things that bugged me outweighed what I liked.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

My Boyfriend’s Dogs

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Not a Romance, Really, but Still Cute.

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Erica Christianson is charming as the young woman who has to kiss a few dogs before she finds her match. Or rather, she has to learn to be herself and not mold herself to whatever she thinks would please her target guy. She starts running, pretends to like Jazz, golf, and read boring classics just to attract and keep him. The whole story is taken up with exploring how her 3 boyfriends lose their luster the more she gets to know them. The last one makes it all the way to the altar. She finally finds her perfect guy who happens to have been in the deep background all along. I didn’t like the way she didn’t learn her lessons with the first two, and because of that she was unfair to guy #3. Yes, he was obnoxious, but he doesn’t deserve his fate and neither did his snobby family. I still give it props for not following the usual template, but I do wish she and the right guy would have had more interactions.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

February 13, 2021

Polar Opposites

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Away with the Penguins

**Spoilers**

I guess it’s not that I’m not particularly a fan of the actress, Rhiannon Fish, I think it’s more the roles she seems to gravitate to. Or is put in. She does “hapless” really well. I did like her in one movie, but generally I find her acting a little too self conscious and stagey. “Look at me, I’m so quirky and cute.” I’m in the minority, however, in seeing the appeal. I actually just saw her in one of her early roles for Hallmark where she played “the sister”, and she was just fine.

Sometimes in order to get past the first 15 minutes of Hallmark movies, you have to ignore the absurd setups which serve to throw the hero and the heroine together. I have to say the one in this movie was one of the most preposterous ever. One day, Emma (Rhiannon Fish) gets a phone call from her father who is in the Antarctic researching penguins with which he is obsessed. The satellite phone keeps going in and out but Emma hears “Real Problem” “Ice sheet breaking up” “Real Danger” “all alone”, and “Killer Whale”. Combined with the chest pains he has lately been experiencing, concerned Emma concludes her father must be in grave danger and is calling for help. She decides she must hot foot it to the South Pole to rescue him from the killer whale, or avalanche or heart attack. A task she is uniquely qualified for as she is a courtroom artist. It doesn’t occur to her to question why he would call his daughter 1000s of miles away in America instead of the team at the substation a short snowmobile drive away from his outpost. The situation only gets muddier as Emma tells her friend that there was no luck getting through to anyone at the nearby research base, but then informs her that his satellite phone isn’t working and no one’s seen him for weeks. Kind of contradictory. It was noticed, screenwriter. Because I didn’t believe for a second that she did not talk to someone at the base, why didn’t Emma just ask the team at the substation to go check on her Dad and rescue him from whatever kerfuffle he has gotten himself into? As we find out later, it wouldn’t have been that big a deal. Because she is kind of a wackadoodle and it turns out the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

She finds out that another research team is catching a cruise ship from Buenos Aires to the base that her Dad drops in on from time to time. To her dismay, she is turned away from boarding the ship since she doesn’t have a ticket or any of the required permits and permissions. Since the Chief Officer turns down both cash and her credit card (because, you know, international law and safety) she decides to sneak on board pretending to be part of the research team. The handsome head of the team, smitten by Rhiannon Fish’s prettiness, puts his whole career on the line, not to mention risking possible arrest, to hide her away and help her.

After all kinds of shipboard high jinks, romantic and otherwise, she finally gets to the substation. She is loaned a snowmobile by head honcho Peggy and goes to her Dad’s Cabin where she finds out her Dad is perfectly fine and that it was all just a big misunderstanding. Turns out it was Lola the penguin’s life which was in danger, not his own. Boy, is his face red! What a crazy guy!

By this time, I was pretty much done. But I had to stick around to the bitter end if only to see if Rhiannon ever puts on a warm hat while tramping around or riding a snowmobile in the minus 50 degree weather. She doesn’t. But she does manage to put on a bathing suit. Rest assured, Lola is saved and reunited with her mate, Hugo, Dad and Peggy become a thing, and Emma moves to the South Pole to continue her romance with Andy the engineer. No one is arrested, and we leave Emma sitting outside in the snow illustrating a Children’s book about Penguins. Still hatless, bless her heart. This movie was filmed in Patagonia and has some nice scenery.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10.

Love of the Irish

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A Three-Leaf Clover

I approached this premier of  Hallmark’s post-Christmas theme , Winter Escape, with not a lot of enthusiasm. I have had very bad luck with Irish-themed movies, and unlike the girl in this one, the luck of the Irish did not see fit to bestow itself upon me.

Fiona is a ballerina who just cannot get a break. She is always just one more audition away from her big starring role, and let’s face it, she is getting up there, especially for a ballet dancer. In her latest failure, she quit her job to try out for her dream role of Giselle, which of course she didn’t get. Bad news delivered by a red-haired and barely recognizable Ali Liebert, who also directed. While commiserating with her mother Helen, she finds a letter from Helen’s Birth Mother whom Helen not only has never met, but whose attempt to reach out has gone unanswered lo these many years (like around 15!). Helen is played by the elegant and beautiful Moira Kelly, beloved of Rom-Com connoisseurs everywhere for her role as Kate Mosely in The Cutting Edge. Since Helen’s antique shop has to be closed for a couple of weeks due to a plumbing problem, and they are both at temporary loose ends, Fiona plans a trip to the Emerald Isle to look up Helen’s long neglected birth mother. Also, Helen’s spouse is out of town on a business trip instead of being dead, or as good as dead, as they usually are in Hallmark’s parent/child Journeys of the Heart. No, he is a supportive husband and their marriage appears to be a happy one from all we ever hear about him. Which isn’t much.

On their first night in the picturesque Irish seaside town where they are staying, Fiona finds her destiny in the form of a pub owner and widowed father of a little girl whose ballet teacher moved to Vienna to breed ferrets (true story). Oh these quirky little details. For some reason, Fiona is very rude and ornery to him. Very Ugly American. But he seems to like it, as well as her dart throwing acumen, because he agrees to take her on a search for The Luck of the Irish tour of the countryside. While doing that, and following the clues to her mother’s birth mother’s whereabouts, need I say that Fiona and he fall for each other and Fiona also gets close to his ballet dancing daughter? Rhetorical question. Throw in community involvement and a vacant building which was formerly the local dance studio, while you’re at it.

Through all of this, Helen just kind of passively goes where ever Fiona leads. A measure of anticipation is achieved when her Bio-Mom is tracked down and Helen gets to know her through their mutual love of antiques before she finally properly introduces herself as her long lost daughter. “Call me Gigi” is nice enough but their emotional reunion left me largely unaffected because we never really hear any of her (or Helen’s) back story. So she’s kind of boring. Also, Helen is never held accountable for her lame and heartless non-response to nice Gigi’s letter.

The romance is strictly by the book, including the call from New York, luring Fiona back for another shot at Giselle. I won’t divulge the resolution of her dilemma, but she made the correct decision in my opinion. All in all I found this a pretty lackluster story which would have been very lackluster indeed without Moira Kelly, Shenae Grimes-Beech, and the very attractive Irish actor Stephen Hagan.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

Christmas in Rome

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Roman Holiday

Lacey Chabert and Sam Page make a good pair. I really liked the rapport they had together. They really matched. This 2019 production is set in Rome and although it had a lot of the usual travelogue elements, there was a lot more plot to this one and it definitely had its moments.

Lacey plays Angela who is an expatriate American living and working in Rome as a tour guide. She loves Rome, knows every little nook and cranny, and delights in taking her tourists off the beaten path to show them the real heart and soul of her favorite city. Unfortunately, her forays away from the safe well traveled tourist sites have sometimes gotten her and her little ducklings into trouble. Her latest out of the way adventure to a 400-year-old bakery results in one of her clients getting attacked by gluten. It is the last straw for Angela’s boss and he fires her. On her way home she meets a visiting business executive, Oliver, played by Sam Page, who is lost. She gets him to his business meeting successfully despite taking the scenic route, to his impatience. Oliver wants the retiring Luigi, played by Franco Nero, as handsome and charismatic as ever, to sell his high end family ceramics company to his firm. Oliver is all business, all the time. He is all about the bottom line, ignoring the niceties, and cutting right to the chase, which might be okay in some countries, but not in Italy, as Angela tries to tell him. As it happens, Luigi is very rich and doesn’t care how much money he gets for his Christmas ornament and other ceramics manufacturing company as long as its heart, soul, and artistic culture is preserved and nourished. There is lot of talk about “heart” and “soul” in this one. When Angela steps in and saves his bacon with Luigi who was very put off by Oliver’s initial approach, she adds life coach to her tour guide duties. She escorts the culture-shocked American around “the real” Rome showing him its heart and soul while lecturing him to death. There is nothing that Angela does not know about anything Roman. This was a very educational Hallmark. Oliver is won over and encourages her to start her own kind of tour guide company, specializing in tours that are much more than just the top ten tourist must-sees and selfie sites in the Eternal City. Meanwhile, Oliver is fending off his boss’s constant nagging about-When he is going to close the deal? What’s taking so long? Why do you look so relaxed and happy? And what does kneading bread with Lacey Chabert have to do with Luigi’s manufacturing plant? God, she was annoying. And the more she talked, the more I was afraid that Oliver actually would convince Luigi to sell his wonderful company to them as they were the exact opposite of everything that Luigi wanted from its future owner.

There were some really good moments in this one besides the scenery.

Angela refusing her former boss’s pleas to come back to work for him was one high point. Despite the inconvenience, seems Angela was very popular with his clients and frequently mentioned by name in his Trip Advisor reviews. His alarm when she tells him she is starting her own company and is on her way to line up some investors (arranged by Oliver) was very satisfying. A real “Hee-Hee-Hee” moment. I really liked that Oliver really bought into and supported Angela’s business aspirations.

Her pitch to her future investors was well done and the outcome was well managed, with just enough suspense to contribute to the overall effect.

I even liked that big conflict at the end which was well-founded and not silly or cooked up. At a celebratory dinner, Angela and Oliver agree to give their relationship a go despite living in different countries. Oliver tells her he will stay in Rome through New Year’s which signals that he has found balance between work and his personal life. Also, he has refused to take his boss’s calls! Angela is so encouraged that when she rings again, Angela encourages him to talk to her. He does, but he comes back to the table with news that he has been promoted to vice president (good news) but he must leave for New York immediately after all (bad).  In an instant, Angela sees the sad reality of their future in front of her versus the dream of making a go of it with the back-sliding Oliver. She calls the whole thing off and is direct, strong, and articulate. It was a great scene, and I was cheering her on all the way. Sam Page perfectly conveyed Oliver’s confusion and heartbreak.

There was a lot to resolve to achieve a satisfactory ending: The romance, Angela’s business venture, Oliver’s work/life balance, and, importantly for me, the future of Luigi’s beautiful little company in the hands of Oliver’s cutthroat employer. All were hanging by a thread. At one point Angela is even contemplating moving back to Seattle, of all places! Sure enough, Hallmark checked them all off and did so right in front of St. Peter’s Basilica during a Christmas concert. Well played.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10.

Chateau Christmas

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“In the willingess to fail, the extraordinary will often appear.”

**Spoilers**

I caught this 2020 Countdown to Christmas movie last night. I had only seen part of it back when it first came out, but it caught my interest because I always like Luke McFarlane and I was happy to see Merritt Patterson again. She has been absent from Hallmark for the last four years. Although she was not the most talented Hallmark actress, she is very pretty and has a sweet and gentle vibe that I kind of like. And Luke has the same type of kind and sunny quality when he is not being an excellent comedic actor.

Margot Hammond (great name!) is a world renowned pianist who is getting a little burned out from the travel, the constant pressure to not disappoint, and fear of not living up to her reputation. She got a rare bad review from a highly respected critic who credited her technical expertise but called her out on her lack of musicality and passion in her playing. It really stung because she knows it is the truth. When an upcoming concert is canceled due to the venue’s roof falling in and almost killing her, she decides to join her family for their traditional Christmas vacation at the Chateau Neuhaus, a ski lodge in Colorado. She is looking forward to licking her wounds in the bosom of her nice, supportive, and charming family.

While tinkling the ivories in the hotel lobby she is approached by her ex-boyfriend and musical partner, Jackson (lovely Luke Mcfarlane). They are surprised but happy to meet up again after so many years even though they parted badly.  8 years ago they were in a quartet together and were in love. But when Margot was offered the opportunity of a lifetime in New York, she did not hesitate to follow her dream of being a concert pianist, unfortunately leaving the group in the lurch. Jackson, who was the cellist, stayed in Colorado and became a music professor who is currently up for the department chair. The PR guy for the lodge, Adam, charmingly played by Jesse Hutch, is another old college buddy and he is in a pickle. The Chateau hosts a highly anticipated and sold out Christmas concert but all of the performers have had to drop out for one reason or another.  Jackson has agreed to replace the director and find replacement musical acts. When the headliner also drops out, he prevails on Margot to take her place. Refreshingly, although Margot feels a teeny tiny bit guilty about the way they broke up, and Jackson was very hurt, there is no bitterness or childish sulking between the two, as is usual in these things. Another example. Margot waffles a bit, but agrees and they take up where they left off, but as friends. They both are wary of acting on their still active romantic feelings for each other because their lives are so different and neither wants to get hurt.

Together they whip the concert into shape (Adam is hopeless), focusing on securing a famous quartet who have been broken up for 20 years and have been incommunicado with each other. Their break up mirrors Margo and Jackson’s in that two of the quartet were in love but Sarah wanted to settle down and start a family and Sam wanted to focus on his career and touring. He confides that he has regretted it ever since. The re-uniting of the surviving members of the Lafayette Quartet and the re igniting of the romance between the now divorced Sarah and curmudgeonly Sam was sweet and engaging.

Now if all romances were as trouble free as this one, it would get pretty boring. But it was nice for a change to have the leads behave like mature adults and professionals. Even when Margot learns the critic that caused her so much grief would be reviewing the concert and that Jackson didn’t tell her right away, it was the set up for the notorious big misunderstanding and temporary breakup with 15 minutes to go. But they communicate, she listens, and she understands his side of the story. My jaw dropped.

Thanks to the advice of the older couple who are given a second chance at love, Jackson and Margot resolve that they too can marry and have a family without compromising her stellar career. Margot overcomes her fears, rediscovers her passion for her music, and gets a stellar review from the critic, who turns out to be really smart and nice. The concert goes off without a hitch and even better than originally planned. Jackson gets the chairmanship of the music department, and of course Jackson and Margot live happily, kindly, and harmoniously ever after.

This was a old school Hallmark but without many of the usual tropes and cliches. The romance is definitely a focus, but not the main focus. More time is taken by the challenges of putting on the last minute concert, Margot finding her musical mojo again, and the secondary romance of the older couple.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

Happy Howlidays

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It Barks.

So this is the last movie of 2024’s Countdown to Christmas. I didn’t review as many as I wanted to. This will be my 20th one but last year, I reviewed 27 and the year before that 45! How did I do that?  And one of the 20 was from 2011 that I ran across, not one of this year’s. I wish I could blame my lack of inspiration on the movies. As usual there were some real winners, and some losers, but I didn’t review many real losers. Until today. No, to my surprise, it really wasn’t that horribly bad. It features the return of Jessica Lowndes to Hallmark after her defection to GAF. She is even more beautiful than before, thanks largely to considerably toned down makeup for this movie. However, her lack of authenticity in her acting  hasn’t changed a bit, nor her vocal fry, intonation, or lack of enunciation.  However, she is competent over half the time and she has her moments. I keep waiting for a breakthrough but I have a soft spot for her and hope she stays with Hallmark. Her leading man is the winner of Hallmark’s competition show, Finding Mr. Christmas. And as I never saw that series and am not likely to, this is where I found him. It was his first acting job, and it shows. But I’ve seen worse. Somewhere. If he keeps acting, I’m sure he will improve. He is very hunky, as proven by having to take his shirt off and discombobulating poor Jessica. Would have seen that scene coming from the international space station.

Jessica plays Mia, who works for the Seattle Travel Bureau which promotes tourism for the city. She is followed home one day by a cute dog she rescues from a killer fence. The next day, she tries to drop him off at a pet rescue center, but is turned away by our hero as the center is full. They hate each other, she, for good reason. He is a real jerk of spectacular proportions. In fact, my judgement of Mr. Christmas’s acting may have been influenced by how much I hated his character. So if that’s the case, I’m sorry, guy. “Max” is officious, mean, and has such a high bar for aspiring pet owners to adopt one of his dogs that he coldly rejects a nice suburban mother’s application, yet won’t take Mia’s dog, despite her telling him she would not be a good dog parent.  She is forced to foster him because she is not heinous or cruel, and Max lets her, even though she is clueless about raising a dog, and he calls her apartment a death trap. So maybe health and safety not his first priority? Not surprisingly, his pet rescue center is struggling to pay the bills. I hated this guy with the heat of a thousand suns.  However, he does apologize later and does some groveling. So I let him live, even though he was always doing something lame. Anyway, her dog, Russell, and Max’s dog, Jules, fall in love which forces the two to spend time together especially since Mia’s videos of the doggy duo  have gone viral and “Jussell’s” love affair has kept thousands of Seattleites glued to their screens. In fact, one wonders why one of his thousands of fans hasn’t stepped up to adopt Russell. Max’s excuse for his behavior, (that is, keeping many dogs from good, if not perfect, homes) is that his and Jules’ hearts were both broken when his girlfriend left for Los Angeles and took her dog with her who was Jules’ doggy girlfriend before Russell. Sorry, I’m not buying it.

Mia, on the other hand, I liked.  She won me over right away when she wakes up with potato chips all over her sheets, and she grabs a few to eat for breakfast. When she wakes up to Russell’s eating her feather pillows and overturning all of her plants, (after stepping barefoot in his pee) she tells him, “There is room for only one hot mess here, and that’s me!” Jessica was funny in these scenes. So we are getting not so subtle hints that Mia has some secret tragedy or at least some serious life disruption that she is running from. **Spoiler Alert** I was quite taken aback when it turned out that she was a former surgeon who got reprimanded by her hospital for operating on a woman who was in a coma and dying without the proper paperwork filled out. This kind of soured her on being a doctor. Though it might have also been because she says she is not good at Math. (Cover your ears, Danica Mckellar!) Towards the end, her doctor parents, whom she has been trying to avoid, try to tell her she can’t save everyone but she shouldn’t stop trying. They were totally right of course, and that’s when I started to not like her so much. What a waste. And her career decision at the end, after Max’s Pet Rescue is saved by a fundraising festival and a large check from Mia’s parents, did not make me change my mind. She decides to throw all of her medical and surgical training for humans away and start all over again to become a vet. Hope she doesn’t lose any furbabies, because here we go again with the quitting trying to save pets as well as people, and throwing a career away.

So despite some bright spots in the script, the big picture was a “Nope” from me. It’s a “5 1/2” because of the cute dog actors, and a funny cameo by Jonathan Bennett. And Max’s cute and smart sister Penny, played by Cassandra Sawtell who was an oasis of charm and talent.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10.

All I Need for Christmas

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All is Calm, All is Bright

This is one of those quiet humble Hallmarks that doesn’t try to break any crazy new ground. It’s a very usual type story with little in the way of real twists or surprises. No attempts to swing for the fences or set the Hallmark world on fire. But I really liked it and was engaged in the story and characters throughout. It’s the kind that about a half hour in, you find yourself surprised and say to yourself “This is really good!”

Both of the lead characters have equally important storylines. Maggie Mackenzie is a professional musician whose career is going nowhere. The band she was going to open for canceled her because they wanted a bigger act. To get her career back on the upswing, she needs to write some new fresh songs, so her manager gives her a phone with a series of music apps on it called “Archline” designed to help aspiring musicians with writing lyrics, sound and auto-tuning. Maggie is offended and views such things as phony, ripping off real musicians, and kind of cheating. While she’s at it, she also eschews  social media to promote her career. Since her big gig has been canceled, she decides to go home to Vermont where her parents own a Christmas tree farm.

Dan Jeannotte plays Archer, the developer of the popular app. He is one half of two estranged siblings who grew up with a very toxic father who has recently died. Usually in Hallmarks when a parent or grandparent dies, they reach back from the grave to help their beloved survivor find love and happiness. This father is so awful that he reached out to continue to pit his two adult children against each other and to foster their  unhealthy rivalry.  Piper’s two kids will get trust funds and any future children of Archer will not because Piper “won” by having her two kids “first”. His will also stipulates that whoever’s net worth is greater by Christmas, will get his seat on his  corporation’s board of directors. Piper is ecstatic and gloating because she just had 2 major settlements come in which will make her the winner. This tracks with how they were raised. As Archer tells Maggie later in the movie, “buckle up for this one.” As soon as the two were old enough to start earning money, their parents kept a record of their earnings to the penny and whoever made the most money by Christmas got a boatload of Christmas presents and the loser got nothing. When he was old enough, Archer was wise enough to get therapy and because of that had long since cut ties with his father.  “I couldn’t heal from the damage while he was still trying to inflict it.” Piper, on the other hand, stuck with dear old Dad and is still carrying around a lot of baggage because of that. Her kids are great though so she must be doing something right. Hallmark kid actor Azriel Dalman plays her son, and he is always good.

Seeing a photo of the one happy family Christmas they had in Vermont, he decides to visit the same huge cabin they stayed in and it just happens to be in the same town as the Mackenzies’ Christmas Tree farm. All proceeds as one would expect. Initially, Maggie is hostile towards Archer as she learns right away that he is the developer of the evil apps that she objects to so strongly. But she can’t help but see that Archer is not the devil but a nice decent guy despite his wealth and success. She shows him how to cut down a Christmas Tree (he has never had one before), and he shows her how his app can help whip the pretty awful children’s Christmas choir she has volunteered to lead into shape. Also her father is firmly on Archers side of technology. When he garners 240,000 followers shooting videos of his adorable pet pigs and life on the farm, her harsh attitude further softens. Meanwhile, on a whim he sends his sister a picture of the log mansion he is staying at and to his surprise, she shows up there with her two kids who have made it clear that they want a real Christmas with Uncle Archer and their own tree. The brother and sister have their struggles and ups and downs while striving to repair their breach. Of course, once we get past the inevitable final conflicts and misunderstandings, breakthroughs are finally made all over the place and we have hopeful resolutions for Dad’s farm, (which I assume was struggling, because…you know), the sibling relationship, the seat on the board, the romance between Archer and Maggie, and her career trajectory.

Their were several reasons why this one succeeded with me. First the acting of Dan Jeannotte as Archer and Emily Tennant, who usually plays the romantic lead and nice girl, as the troubled Piper was excellent. I really really liked Archer. He was so nice, normal, and steady,  handling all of the challenges that came his way with grace and humor. And both Piper and Maggie, were both pretty troublesome throughout most of the story. I liked Mallory Janson as Maggie as well. She’s a good actress and made a character that had some very irritating ways and attitudes somewhat tolerable. It was a nice peaceful kind of story, but with enough conflict, tension and anticipation to make it interesting. It was a reminder that as much as I appreciate comedy, surprises, out of the box characters and story lines, Hallmarks “old faithful” type stories can also have their charms. Predictability does not have to be boring.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10.

The Santa Class

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Campy Christmas Camp

Kimberly Sustad plays Kate North who has inherited North Star Academy, a school for Santas from her recently retired father. “What is a Santa School?” you may well ask. Well, it’s just what it sounds like. It’s for the training of those aspiring to be “picture perfect” Santa Clauses in order nab the most prestigious Santa jobs at the best malls, department stores, and parades. After her father retired, most of her clients have left for the competition (more on that later) and she, already only reluctantly trying to run this school, is left with 6 trainees which on the surface could only be described as pretty hopeless. We have a Jewish hippie Santa, a very intense  woman Santa with a chip on her shoulder (for some  reason), A Santa who speaks through a hand puppet-excuse me- “figure” aka “ “a talking piece of felt,” an elderly cool black Santa who wants to prove himself to his grandkids, a young skinny Santa who is only there to research his doctoral thesis on Santa Mythology, and an actor named “Paul Campbell”, up for a part in a Christmas Movie and played by my and many others’ favorite Hallmark actor, Paul Campbell.

Things are not going well. To add to her woes, we have the aforementioned competition, the Saint Nicholas School, “America’s Top Santa School,” which has been has been sucking the life out of North Star Academy for years. Back in 2013, North Star Academy’s business manager Blaise left to set up his own school, because Kate’s father, a legend in the business, was too focused on turning out wonderful Santas and not making as much profit as he could. Blaise has built a very profitable corporate-backed school and is now about to branch out into training Cupids, Leprechauns, and Easter Bunnies. Kate is on the verge of selling out to the owner of many malls who has offered to buy the school. He is actually nice and not a bad guy. Kate’s love interest is a hot shot Santa trainer (voted the best in America), played by Hallmark mainstay Ben Ayers, who was recently fired from St. Nicholas by Blaise because his high salary was eating into the board members’ Christmas bonuses. Kate and Dan went on a date once but Kate dumped him when she found out he worked for money-grubbing Blaise. Now fired Dan comes to Kate begging her for a job, and she agrees to take him on as her Santa trainer for the current session. Ben and Kimberley’s chemistry was excellent. She is such a presence that she needs a strong actor as a partner, and they both shine in these goofball roles.

Can we just say that  this movie is not thoroughly grounded in reality?  And this is not solely due to the fantasy element which is introduced when, driving back to Kate’s school,  they almost run over an old fat man in a red suit who is stumbling down  the middle of the road. It’s the real Santa Claus! But he has hit his head somehow and has amnesia. Kate and Dan know he is the real one because they both see his sleigh with his 8 reindeer flying away back home. They decide to take him back to her school to take care of him and help him regain his memory of who he is before it’s too late for all of the little boys and girls of the world to get their presents.

We are asked to just ignore a lot of questionable or nonsensical plot elements. The main thing is that the action is set during Christmas season right on up to Christmas Day. Shouldn’t Santas be trained during the summer or early autumn? There they are at Santa school when they should be already fully trained and working at being Santa Clauses. Even though the ending is happy and full of hope, we are not sure why. Nothing is really resolved. Yes, our team won the “Christmas Cup” from their rival, but it really doesn’t solve any of their problems. The money-rich corporate backed competition is still there, even though bad Blaise’s heart grew a few sizes thanks to a special gift from Santa Claus. I wasn’t convinced Kate still didn’t feel trapped running the school. Is Dan really worthy of her? And other stuff.

But it was fine! The presence and performance of Kimberly Sustad and the rest of the cast of characters more than made up for any gaps in logic. The whole plot line was kind of brave and really outside the usual box. It just barreled along and just kind of dared the viewer to question what was going on with the details. It was really funny with lots of jokes (some inside jokes for Hallmark fans), snappy dialogue, snarky banter, and interesting well acted characters. Trevor Lerner was perfect as Santa Claus, whose magic keeps popping out as needed. The romance between Kate’s academic sister Bailey (Doctor of European Folklore) and the the doctoral candidate Santa was cute. As a parting gift, Santa gives Kate a beacon in the form of a magic whistle which she is to use if she ever needs Santa’s help again. So that solves everything. We don’t have to worry or question that the future success of Kate’s business or her love life will be anything but but guaranteed. And I feel like there was hint of a sequel on the horizon. So maybe the loose ends will be tied up eventually.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10.

Leah’s Perfect Gift

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Unfulfilled Promise

Young New York professionals Leah Goldberg and Graham Westwood are in love and in a committed relationship. In fact, Leah, although she laughs off the idea coyly, is expecting a proposal soon, likely during the holidays. She meets his nice (gay) sister for the first time and they get along great. On impulse, the siblings invite Leah to spend Christmas with his family in Connecticut and to meet their parents for the first time. Leah is excited to finally experience a traditional Christmas holiday with all the trimmings. That evening, Graham goes to Leah’s  family’s Hanukkah celebration. Her large family are warm and welcoming and a wonderful time is had by all. There’s lots of food.

On the way to Graham and Maddie’s luxurious home they give Leah a list of forbidden topics of conversation and warn her that their parents can be “a lot.” Indeed. They probably should have provided Leah with much more detail. In fact, a manual of behavior would not have gone amiss. Their father is pretty nice when he is not hinting around that he expects his children to eventually join him in the banking business (not happening), but the mother, played by Barbara Niven is a piece of work. Barbara Westwood is tense and inhospitable to Leah, who is a star in every way: Sweet, friendly, warm, and very intelligent and successful. As we learn, Barbara can not deal with change and thrives on routine and tradition. Leah’s mere presence as Graham’s unexpected new girlfriend, is enough to seriously upset her apple cart. She also is a perfectionist and very particular about everything. When decorating the tree, she uses a tape measure to divide the tree into quadrants to ensure each section has the same number of ornaments and those ornaments must be exactly 4 inches a part. You get the picture. Throughout the family’s checking off all the activities on Barbara’s Christmas Itinerary, Leah can do nothing right in Barbara’s eyes and she cannot disguise that fact. To make matters worse, there’s no food! No snacks to nosh on and Barbara is a terrible cook. The constant barrage of Barbara’s micro-aggressions towards Leah while putting on a smiley facade is like death by a thousand cuts. Leah goes from an eager to please and be pleased confident woman to doubting her own worth and often on the verge of tears. Graham and Maddie try, but are of very little help. They have lived with their mother’s quirks all their life and don’t seem to fully realize the effect she is having on poor Leah. They comfort her and assure her that it’s not personal and to just be herself, but Leah still feels like an outsider. I couldn’t wait for one or both of them to stand up to Barbara or at least do more to help Leah cope. And to top it all off Graham is being aggressively pursued by his old off and on girlfriend with Barbara’s full blessing.

Everything is barreling towards a great dramatic and exciting scene where the last straw is finally reached and Barbara finally gets the truth bomb dropped on her in an epic telling off. Would it by Graham, Leah, Maddie, or some combination of the three? I was all there for it,  And the snobby bad girlfriend had to be similarly dispatched, of course. I couldn’t wait. There’s nothing like retribution, repentance, forgiveness,  and reconciliation for Christmas! But nothing of the sort happens. At the culminating event of the Christmas fundraiser Graham mildly tells his mother that Leah is “good for him,” (which she already knew he was going to propose) and she needs to be “a little more flexible” with her. What? As if it was Leah’s behavior for which allowances needed to be made?! Barbara runs away to the cloakroom, starts to cry,  and is found by Leah. And all of a sudden Barbara has a total personality transplant. Out of nowhere,  she tells Leah she likes and admires her and starts calling her “honey,” and “sweetheart”. She is “shocked!”, I tell you “shocked!” that Leah could have gotten it into her head that she did anything wrong or that Barbara hated her.  And the girlfriend! She buttonholes Leah and out of nowhere and admits she crossed the line with Graham and apologizes! Is it possible that Graham finally stood up to her? Maybe. But if so we were cheated out of that scene too.

At the end, the Goldbergs and the Westwoods are together to witness the long awaited proposal of marriage on Christmas Day. Which she accepts. Graham promises to stand up for her in the future and to be her “rock.” Do we believe him? Who cares? It’s too late for the viewer because the movie’s over.

There were many good things about this movie besides the performances, but in the end I just couldn’t forgive the unfulfilled promise. Emily Arook absolutely shone as the overwhelmed but plucky Leah. She carried the movie and kept me watching and anticipating for her to be avenged. For once, Evan Roderick seemed right for his role. In the past he has played a spoiled brat not nearly good enough for the heroine, or seemed to be more of a little brother to the heroine rather than her romantic partner. But it is Barbara Niven’s performance that I was most impressed with. Yes, her character is rigid and awful to the point of scariness. But the veteran actress made her vulnerable as well. One had the impression that she didn’t have any control over her behavior. That her meanness was not a conscious choice but some kind of personality disorder for which, we would be assured at the end, therapy would be forthcoming.  At one point I briefly thought early onset Alzheimers might be a possibility, but that would probably be too depressing for a Hallmark Christmas movie.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10.