Katherine Barrell

O Little Christmas Market

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Rinky Dink

“Christmas in July” does seem to be the season for unambitious efforts and not breaking out of the tried and true. This one was made in 2024 and I guess has been on the shelf until Hallmark pulled it out this year for their “Poor Man’s Countdown to Christmas”. This one features Katherine Barrell, who has given some nice performances, going for it. She is stars with Hallmark mainstay, Stephen Huzsar. Their pairing was OK. I didn’t have a problem with it.

 I’m not going to go over the plot in detail. Suffice it to say it’s about saving a small town Christmas Market from a big city developer. He was as “bad guy” as these characters usually are, putting the demands of “the board”, and profits ahead of everything, including his son Grayson (Huszar). Unlike his father, Grayson yearns to be creative and to use his architect skills for good to bring communities together and to go outside of the box with his building designs. Unfortunately he is firmly under his father’s thumb and won’t stand up to him or just leave. Katherine Barrell plays Olivia, who is still grieving her Dead Father. Her first priority is saving the Christmas Market he founded as a way to hold on to him. Her hobby is making miniature scenes or dioramas. This plays a pretty big part of the plot as it turns out to be the key to selling the solution that will make Grayson’s father happy and save the market at the same time. Also, she must learn to spend more time with the hobby that she loves, and make her “art” a serious business. She does nothing with her creations when she could be selling her work online or in her own shop. Instead she busies herself with prioritizing everyone else’s business over herself. 

There were a quite few things about this movie that I couldn’t buy into. First of all, I am sorry to say that Olivia’s miniatures seemed pretty rinky dink to me. Other than painting a rock a strange shade of blue (for a rock) and putting teeny tiny little miniature Christmas ornaments on a pre-fabricated tree, we do not see her actually doing any art. At one point, she goes to a hobby shop to buy the little miniature accessories which she arranges on the base. We  should have seen her actually making her miniature buildings from raw materials, or her making the molds of the real people she puts in there. I mean my late mother-in-law put a Hallmark miniature Christmas scene on her mantel every year but that did not make her an artist. She would have hooted at that idea. And it looked much better than these creations.

The merchants or vendors we see selling stuff at the market seem to be very uninvested in doing anything to help themselves or in keeping the (also rinky dink) market afloat. We are never given a good reason why they don’t have the market all year round to make more money. Something about the stalls being old and decrepit? Well, couldn’t they invest a little of their own time and money to fix them up? For their own good? And what’s wrong with a tent and a table? That’s what the food, farm, and craft vendors in our city do at our “Soda City Market”. It takes up 2 to 3 blocks on our Main Street every Saturday all year long. 200+ dealers every week. It’s quite the draw. It looked like there were about 12 at this market. I didn’t see anything that needed any “infrastructure” to sell, except for some guy selling hot soup along with his homemade fudge (!). “Infrastructure” being an electrical outlet. At end they do rally, starting with with a jar for their customers to put change in. Way to go all out, guys! They come through with a huge wad of cash from somewhere to pay for the transport of free metal shipping containers some company was trying to off load. These containers were to be the new stalls for the vendors and my goodness were they ugly. This whole idea seemed pretty spurious to me.

My sympathies were all with the guy wanting to sell the vacant lot to the developer. He was an old guy with grandchildren and all of his money was tied up in that property. He had to sell. But he had to endure the scowls and guilt trips that everyone (especially Olivia) were trying to lay on him. When you’re rooting for the opposition, that’s not a good sign.

Lastly, our hero, Grayson, came across as pretty weak for not standing up to his father or striking out on his own as their values and philosophies were so diametrically opposed. He finally did at the end (about 15 years too late), but before Olivia had to pitch her solution for his development to his scary father, he actually left town! Without a word to her. Olivia had to chase after him. Not a good look. 

One of the themes of this movie is the importance of creativity and willingness to go outside of the box rather than resisting change at every turn. This movie’s showrunners could certainly have taken a page out of their own book because in every aspect, this effort was firmly stuck right there in that Hallmark box.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10.

The Christmas Baby

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Two Wise Women and a Baby

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Erin (Ali Liebert) and Kelly (Katherine Barrell) are a happy couple just as they are. They are two successful women with large families and good friends. Their lives are full and complete and they have no desire to add children to the equation. But in the words of an old proverb, “Man plans, God laughs”. Erin is still at her store and rushing to get ready to attend an awards ceremony where Kelly is receiving an award for her production design. She hears someone enter her closed store and rushes out from the backroom only to find a baby boy in a carriage attached to a handwritten note.

“Kelly and Erin, I know you will take good care of him. His name is Nicholas. I’m sorry. I tried.”

Erin takes the baby to the event and together the couple decides to call social services. They are lucky enough to get lovely Barbara Niven who plays Betty, as the assigned case worker. Despite her assurances that a nice foster home awaits the baby, they ultimately  decide to take care of little Nicholas (nod to the season) temporarily over Christmas. Unlike Three Wise Men and a Baby the abandoned baby plot is not played for laughs. It is not without lightness and humor, but in the end, it is a quiet, sweet, and gentle story about a couple who opens up their lives and decides to redefine what it means to be a family. 

The two are never really in serious conflict, but Erin is decidedly more open to the idea of adding a baby into their lives. In fact, she is all in almost from the very beginning. Practical Kelly, on the other hand, is more reluctant and concerned about getting too close to Nicholas lest the mother show up and take the baby back after coming to her senses. As well she should be. She is unsure whether they can give him the stability and consistency he needs. I was a little surprised that Erin was full speed ahead with fostering the child given the possibility of having the baby taken away hanging over their heads. Or worse, being the baby’s foster parents for an extended time while waiting to adopt, before such a thing happens. Kelly is also concerned with the disruption to their lives and navigating the social challenges. She shares that she has always known in her heart and down to her toes who she is supposed to be and who she was supposed to love, but doesn’t know how to raise a child in a world that she herself does not understand: A world where complete strangers just look at her and think that she is wrong. But seeing how much it means to Erin and also falling for little Nicholas herself, Kelly puts her concerns to one side and they start the paperwork to be Nicholas’s official guardians and foster parents on more than just a temporary basis. Both women’s families and friends are part of their lives and are with them for the holidays. Their mothers are also important parts of their lives. The fathers, however, are absent and unaccounted for as far as I could tell. They even make friends with their grouchy neighbor and they inspire him to mend things with his estranged daughter. They will need all the support they can get when Betty calls with the scary news that the mother has turned up and wants to meet with them. 

Ali Liebert and Katherine Barrell have always been favorites and they give wonderful and authentic performances in this. There is a lot of conversation and introspection in this one but it was well balanced with happenings in their lives and steps forward and back. And always the question of who the mother is (it is obviously someone they must know), what will happen if or when she comes back, and why did she do what she did?  I was still left with some questions and concerns at the end which hopefully will lead to a sequel next Christmas.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10.

A ’90s Christmas

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“There You Go.”

This one didn’t get a lot of promotion that I saw, and it was on at an odd time Friday night. Also, it didn’t have a lot of popular Hallmark stars except possibly Chandler Massey who has never not been adorable. But since it was time travel, (how could it not be, since Chandler was in it?) one of my favorite plots, I decided to give this first priority with a view to reviewing it the next morning. And what a good thing, because it turned out to be my top favorite Christmas Movie so far this year.

Lucy is a workaholic divorce lawyer who has just received the letter confirming an offer to become a partner in her Chicago firm. She has worked so hard for this goal that she has  cut herself off from her family in Milwaukee and has no friends to celebrate with. Intending to work right through Christmas, she goes to a nearby diner, foregoing the staff Christmas Party, to have some celebratory pancakes. There, she has two encounters. The first is with a guy that used to be her next door neighbor which we learn she used to be close to. They have a catch up, and Lucy is surprised he had given up his dream of being an actor. He wonders why she is alone in a diner and not with her family. He leaves commenting sadly that she is the “Same old Lucy.” She turns around a little confused and now sitting across from her is the waitress. It’s a magical waitress to whom she insists that she is very happy with her life and wouldn’t change a thing. She leaves the diner and the “waitress” is also her Uber driver, played to perfection by Katherine Burrell. She asks to be taken home, dozes off, and when she wakes up, she is back at the family home in Milwaukee and, as she soon learns, it is 25 years ago, in 1999!

What follows is Lucy trying to get back to her present life in Chicago and the promotion she has been working so hard for.  The Christmas that Lucy is sent back to was pivotal in her life. Her father had died earlier that year and that made her a different person. She is now back to the first Christmas without him. Her Mom has not yet embraced her grief, wanting to be the strong one for her two daughters. She distracts herself by keeping busy busy busy and trying to make this Christmas perfect. Lucy, at only 19, was  wrapped up in her own  grief and did not help her at the time, nor her sister, who is struggling with keeping her homosexuality under wraps, as well as her own grief.  Now, with the wisdom of her 44 years in her 19 year old body, she sees what a mess her mom was and how much help her closeted lesbian sister needs. But whenever she does the right thing and tries to help them, she is changing the future and that lessens the chance that she can get back to her old life. Whenever she acts differently than her oblivious 19 year old self, the letter offering her a partnership starts to fade away. Like the family photo in Back to the Future.  Meanwhile, Grace, the Uber driver who took her back in time is tut-tutting and issuing disapproving noises whenever Lucy changes things that make it harder for her to recapture her 2024 life. It all hinges with Lucy staying the course and taking the full ride to Northwestern University like she did in 1999, rather than follow Matt (Chandler) to Columbia University which she would have to pay for. I really liked the love story in this. The two 19 year olds were in love, but with the death of her father, Lucy pulled away from him, afraid to be close to him as with her sister and Mom. The tension of Lucy repairing her relationship with Matt and them falling deeper and deeper in love, Lucy tempted to follow him to Columbia instead of guaranteeing her stable successful future, combined with the viewers rooting for Lucy to choose Love, Family, and Matt instead of the dry and lonely life she is living in her 40s makes this movie a great one. When will she realize she is working against her best interests by striving to recapture her Chicago life?

The details of the set decoration and references to ‘90s history and culture were spot on and clever. There was some really good humor in this movie (Y2K anyone?). One of my favorite lines was Lucy asking Grace, “ What happens if I can’t remember every little thing I did back then? What if I sneeze and I didn’t sneeze before? Does that create a ripple in time and now the air fryer doesn’t exist?” The acting of everyone was terrific, especially Chandler who was very endearing as Matt, Kate Drummond who did such a great job in this year’s To Have and To Holiday, and Alex Hook as her struggling sister. Another bright spot was Lucy’s science fiction loving best friend, Nadine,  with whom she had grown away from, but the only one she tells in 1999 that she is from the future.

The last 10 minutes of this were some of the most moving I have ever seen in a Hallmark movie. From the point of Grace’s reaction seeing that Lucy has finally taken the alternate path and gotten it right at last, (despite her warnings to the contrary throughout the movie), to our glimpses into Lucy, Matt, and her family’s life as it turned out to be, thanks to her time-travel, I was choked up.

My only quibble with this movie was seeming to have Lucy follow Matt to Columbia despite getting her whole college paid for at Northwestern. I didn’t think that was a great message. But I looked at the ending twice, and I think a case can be made that she did make the fiscally responsible choice rather than follow a boy to his school, but was still able to stay close to him thanks to what she learned.

Rating: 10 out of 10.

Shifting Gears

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Dead Battery

After more than several Christmas movies that surprised and delighted and a February slate that really went outside their usual wheelhouse with their tributes to Jane Austen, it’s back to, if not the salt mines, at least bland and boring reality for Hallmark. Oh, this one will probably get decent reviews and good numbers because it stars the ever-popular Tyler Hynes who does his usual growly low-talking and vaguely rough around the edges thing. Also, as usual, his character’s character leaves a lot to be desired (i.e. weak). But it was a Hallmark that went strictly by the Hallmark playbook: Where do I start? Shy and afraid of “getting back out there” and stepping-outside-her-comfort-zone heroine, who is still recovering from dead mother syndrome meets the ex-boyfriend who broke her heart in High School. They compete with each other in a contest whose prize money will save her father’s business from failure. The boyfriend, who is dissatisfied with his desk job, works for an evil corporation owned by his father who is trying to (double whammy!) put her father out of his already struggling business. Also, I couldn’t believe it when the compulsory winter bonding activity of ice skating was replaced with…roller skating! Cuz it’s not winter anymore! It’s spring! And this is the kick off to “Spring Into Love!” What is it with Hallmark and skates?

Even though the foundation of the plot was the same old same old, I will say that the accessories were kind of interesting. The business in question is a car garage and our heroine, Jess, is the mechanic who also restores vintage cars. (That’s what the reality show/contest is about.) We have a lot of love for and information about cars from the 1950s and 60s which was definitely more interesting than some of the usual professions that we are subjected to in Hallmark movies. Also worth mentioning is that this is the first movie in Ashley Williams’ Make Her Mark program which fosters and provides the opportunity for women who aspire to be directors. Hallmark has been very good about giving women the opportunity to write and direct their movies, from what I can tell. And this program just reinforces this effort. Well done, Hallmark! Also Kudos in the acting department to Ray Galletti who did such a great job playing “Wayne LaRouche” the host of the reality show that I actually googled “Wayne LaRouche” expecting to see that he was a real guy who owned a chain of classic car restoration shops.

Rating: 5 out of 10.

Everything Christmas

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Don’t Peek Behind the Curtain

This one was not a real disappointment because, for some reason, I wasn’t expecting much. The leads were likable, not a Hallmark that I pre-judge negatively because of the actors. I’ve always had a soft spot for Cindy Busby and she did her typical Cindy Busby thing in this one. And Corey Sevier is always good. Unfortunately, the plot was rather a throwaway one, and I didn’t think Cindy and Corey had great chemistry. Although at least in this one there was not a big age gap. And yes, I can buy the 40-year-old actors being 32. I don’t think Hallmark had a lot of faith in this one. The production values were sub-par and the title is vague and seems lazy.

Lori Jo quits her job in the first scene because her bratty boss who has a man bun tells her she must work through the holidays and she has Christmas plans that are 10 years in the making. She is going to Yuletide Springs, the ultimate Christmas town, to put a special ornament on their town Christmas Tree. This is a trip she had always planned with her Grandmother, who unfortunately has recently died. She is doing this for Gran. She convinces her friend and co-worker, Tori, who is much more practical and down to earth to go with her.  What we have here is a road trip. And it’s kind of blah.

On the first day out,  LJ meets her Christmas-loving soulmate, a garage-owning mechanic who rescues the pair when their car breaks down. A magic Santa Claus figure also enters the picture and he gives the trio each a little gift that will prove to be mysteriously useful in the next few days. Through a series of his seemingly magical manipulations, Zack, the garage owner meets up again with LJ and Tori even though they are much further down the road from where they left him in his garage. This was confusing and I really needed a map. They have been diverted by Magic Santa whose name is Kris Kringle (nothing subtle there!) to another town on the way to Yuletide Springs. There, Tori meets her lovematch, Jason, and they visit an attraction called the Enchanted Forest, where the first gift comes into play. Jason decides to join them as Zack drops out because he has to go back to work.

Skip skip skip. They eventually get to Yuletide Springs, which is somewhere out west (I need a map!!) and LJ breaks the special ornament while hanging it on the special Christmas tree.  Another gift comes in and the situation is saved in another seemingly magical and fateful way. Also, Zack shows up in Yuletide Springs. The movie ends in a strange way. All through the movie, we are wondering if this Kris Kringle is the real Santa or just a magician. When they reach Yuletide Springs, Kris is there and established as the town Santa. By this time all 4 are convinced that there is real Santa magic going on, but then we learn some information to the contrary. He is a retired professional illusionist named Chris Bronstad. They are confused and disappointed. Especially Tori who has been the “logical explanation” girl throughout the whole movie. But all those magical occurrences that happened on the way to Yuletide Springs can not be explained by a magician’s tricks and illusions. It ends with some dissonance that is rather awkward. And you know what? It could have been fixed by having Chris’s surname mean something like magical or mysterious elf or saint or something in Swedish. But wait, that elf at the very end. Haven’t we seen her before? I’m still confused, but as Chris/Kris says at the end, “Don’t peek behind the curtain.” Mmmmm…that doesn’t fly with me. I probably won’t be peeking at this one again. But not horrible.

Rating: 6 out of 10.