Warren Christie

A Royal Montana Christmas

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Dude!

It’s not often that I have nothing to say. The title says it all. But it’s the Saturday premiere of the first movie in Hallmark’s Countdown to Christmas. So. The overscheduled and stressed out Princess Victoria of Zelarnia escapes to a Montana dude ranch where she went as a child with her late father for a little R and R and falls for Huntley, the son of the owners. Besides having no free time in Zelarnia she is discouraged from being herself or straying outside the lines in any way, shape, or form while doing her princessly duties. After Christmas she will be taking over for her mother the queen full time. Luckily her mother is supportive and Victoria doesn’t really so much as “escape” but is allowed to go to Montana as long as she takes her head scheduler and assistant, Gabriel along with her and is back by December 19th for the official lighting of the third Advent candle. Also she has a nice sister, who is much more suited for her duties than Victoria is, to fill in. Gabriel is from New York City, and he will help Victoria navigate the strange ranch customs of America. In the one amusing line, Gabriel protests that the only ranch he is “acquainted with is ranch dressing.”

And that is pretty much that. No one recognizes her at all, so there is no cloak and dagger hiding her identity or escaping from the paparazzi going on. The fact that she is a royal princess doesn’t really play into the story at all. No culture shock, no nothing. She might as well be another Hallmark American stressed out business woman on vacation. Except for the German (?) accent. Even citified prissy Gabriel is a good sport about all they have to go through. For some strange reason, Victoria and Gabriel, paying guests mind you, are given nasty chores on their first day including mucking out the stalls (“Charlie made a big ole mess last night.” snicker snicker. Charlie being a horse.) There is some mystery about why they no longer have the annual Christmas dance which Victoria remembers so fondly.  But with the help of Huntley’s gorgeous high school friend, Shelby, she enthusiastically and competently revives it to raise money for the volunteer fire department. Shelby is nice and even though she and Huntley were the homecoming Queen and King there is no romance there at all. Drama and misunderstandings averted. Huntley’s deal is that he used to be a baseball player and even made it to the pros. But he blew out his rotator cuff during his first spring training, letting down his community who cheered him on at the last Christmas Dance that they held many years ago.  Next year’s dance was canceled because his parents were too busy seeing to his recovery. Ever since, instead of helping his parents run the ranch full time he has been assistant coaching unhappily in the minor leagues there in the hinterlands of Billings Montana and struggling with some kind of complex for letting down his community. The community doesn’t care, bro. They are too busy with their own lives.

When the Christmas dance is scheduled the day after Victoria is supposed to leave she just calls up her mom and gets an extension. No problemo. Meanwhile Huntley and Victoria have fallen in love while doing ranch activities under the big sky of Montana. At one point things get serious (they almost kiss) and she tells him she is a real princess. No problemo. Even though he is now going to help run the ranch full time, and her destiny is in Zelarnia, they are going to work it out and be together “as a team”, “whatever that looks like.” Holy matrimony is not mentioned. Sure enough, she goes back to Zelarnia to light the last Advent candle, and comes back seemingly the next day (going by what I know about Advent Candles) on Christmas to live the dream in Montana with her mother and sister in tow. They fit right in and little sis happily agrees to take over Victoria’s princess duties for ever after they get back home.

This one was not an auspicious start to Hallmark’s Countdown to Christmas 2025 version. Fiona Gubelman and Warren Christie were well cast, had good chemistry and did the best they could with a really boring script. Warren looks excellent in a Cowboy hat and the kisses were solid.

Rating: 5 out of 10.

Home Turf

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Extracurricular Activities

I will give this one extra credit for a pretty unusual and fun premise. Nikki Deloach plays Cassidy, a tightly wound new president of a small Ohio university trying to save The Arts program from being cut. Warren Christie does a nice job as the new college football coach trying to lead his struggling team to its first win. When the pipes burst in the dorm flooding out 21 members of the football team, the only solution is to put 5 of them up in the 10+ bedroom mansion that functions as the home of the President of the University. Of course they act like barbarians destroying Cassidy’s peace and quiet and her flower pots. They also drink her oat milk and don’t use coasters. In order to corral the savage beasts (a.k.a. teenage boys and football players to boot) Nikki insists that Logan move into the room above the garage to keep his guys in line. The whole set up was jam packed full of all sorts of opportunities for romance and humor. It makes one wonder why it’s never been used before (to my knowledge).

Back story time! Cassidy is one of Hallmark’s highly organized very busy, busy, busy but closed off  (but enthusiastic!) personalities who feels like she can’t depend on anyone but herself. This is because of her ex-husband. He did the usual “let his wife put him through school but when it was his turn to return the favor, he bails.” The President before Cassidy had handled the school’s budget irresponsibly leaving a big mess on her hands. Logan is the son of a legendary coach of “Buckeye State” University whose shadow he has always struggled in. He had been one of his dad’s assistant coaches at the Division I school, but had to leave despite his success due to charges of nepotism. Cuz that never happens in Football. That is why he has landed at Whittendale College. Together they formulate a plan to get a very rich alumnus to donate money to build a new football stadium in order to save the Arts program (!!!???). You may well be scratching your heads over this plan, but it turns out the millionaire they have set their sights on loves The Arts but loves football more. And as everyone knows football brings in a lot of revenue which will trickle down to The Arts. Yeah.

Now don’t ask me why the parsimonious board would target The Arts program in the first place rather than some other program (like football?). After all, it is The Arts program that the small college is known for and presumably attracts more aspiring The Arts students than student-athletes. “The cost of instruments” is thrown out there as justification but that doesn’t fly because according to my research, usually student musicians provide their own instruments. Do Student Athletes provide their own helmets and pads? I don’t think so. I guess we will just have to go with the well known fact that it is always The Arts program, no matter what, that is sacrificed when there is a budget shortfall in school-based movies.

Warren Christie and Nikki DeLoach were a nice match. They were age appropriate for each other and for their characters. It was not their first movie together and they had a good rapport. Nikki kind of over-did her character’s initially jittery personality in my view, but I’ll give her a pass on this one because she is usually one of Hallmark’s most exceptional actresses. After their coffee-spillage meet cute, the romance proceeded smoothly and believably with a kiss in the middle of the movie like mature adults. The almost break up at the end was for good reason as Logan did a really bad thing. They both had good character arcs with Cassidy learning how to loosen up, become a team player, and embrace her little ersatz family. Logan learned that there is more to building a good team than good discipline and to be his own man not a carbon copy of his famous Dad. And of course the young men learned many many things from “Mommy and Daddy”. “Respect the Wood!” 7 1/2 stars.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10.

Our Holiday Story

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The Question

**Spoilers**

Nikki DeLoach is such a good actress. At times I have really been struck by her talents. Sometimes her roles don’t give her a lot of opportunity to really shine, but she always does a great job with what she is given. Although a festival plays a huge role in this one, the plot is something really different. Well, not really, but the framing of the core story is. A young woman, Joanna, is meeting her boyfriend, Chris, in her hometown to meet her parents, Dave and Nell, for the first time. Unfortunately her train is delayed and she sends the nervous young man into the fray alone. Before he rings the doorbell, she warns him under no circumstances to ask them…a-a-a-nd her phone dies. They welcome him with the proverbial open arms and her parents are frequent Hallmark flyers Nikki DeLoach and Warren Christie! We learn that Nikki (Nell) is Joanna’s stepmother and has been married to her father (Dave) for 10 years. They appear to be in their  early 40s, Dave having been a very young father when Joanna was born. Struggling for a topic of conversation, Chris asks how the two met. Very pleased at his interest, Dave tells him, “Actually it’s a pretty funny story…” And we flash back to 10 years ago. Yes, for once we  get to hear the blissfully happy parents’ love story instead of focusing on the young couple.

The rest of the movie goes back and forth between the past and the present. 10 years ago, Dave is trying to resurrect a traditional Christmas festival started by his grandfather. His 16-year-old daughter is his much needed assistant as we see Dave is a little disorganized. In the present, several delays prevent Joanna from joining her parents and Chris, mainly so the older couples story can be told in stages while we get to know both couples. Nell and Dave are strangers who meet on a train, both traveling to same town, and form an instant connection. Unfortunately they are parted before they exchange names. They are both really bummed. But happily, they meet by chance in town again, and finally get the first names down but circumstances prevent any more information being exchanged. And so it goes with the two almost strangers meeting and parting again and falling for each other more and more before they find out they actually are each other’s worst  enemy “in real life”. Eleanor (Nell) is the town’s new comptroller who, trying to keep the town’s budget under control, has been a big roadblock to David Ammer’s (Dave’s) beloved Christmas Festival.  David, though they have never met, sees Eleanor as a sad and lonely Grinch who gets “pleasure out of sucking the joy out of life.” And to Eleanor, David  is the scatterbrained disorganized flake who only cares about the festival with no heed to the town budget or other practical matters.

Besides the engaging story of Dave and Nell falling in love while hating each other’s alternate identities, there was a lot to like in this one. I loved that Dave and Chloe, Joanna’s Mom, were still good friends despite their divorce. Early on, she tells him he doesn’t need someone free and easy, like himself, but more organized and focused to keep him on track. In the present, we see that Nell and Chloe (played by the always welcome Lisa Durupt) have become good friends as well. I liked the little touches of linking the past and present with the train, a favorite fruitcake, and Ugly Sweaters. We see that the opposites attract connection has worked out for Nell and Dave, as it apparently didn’t for Chloe and Dave.  We see Nell becoming less buttoned down and more adventurous, and Dave becoming more focused and goal oriented.  The romance between the young couple was OK but a little boring. When Dave learned the truth about Nell, he was way harsh to her which seemed very much out of character but certainly added some drama and tension. Warren Christie and Nikki Deloach were a perfect match for their roles. I don’t think this would have worked with Nikki’s frequent co-star, Andrew Walker. The movie ended on a humorous note with Chris’s parents asking Nell and Dave the forbidden question, with the couple more than happy to comply and relive their romance once again. All in all, this was warm and cozy Christmas romance, with just enough humor, drama, and emotion to make it a something special.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

The More Love Grows

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D-I-V-O-R-C-E

Rachel Boston has a particular acting style. Animated? Energetic? Bright-eyed and bushy tailed? Hard to describe in one word. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.

My problem with this one was the short shrift the dissolution of a 20-year marriage with a child is given. The husband just leaves with no warning or discussion. And it’s not like there were serious issues in the marriage. No cheating or emotional/physical abuse, addiction issues, mental health issues, etc. And no counseling. Even though her new man was a better guy than old husband, and she was better off without old husband, it bothered me. His lack of effort at the beginning, and her lack of effort at the end when he came crawling back.

One thing I loved about this one was when Rachel Boston’s friends were on the fence about their support for her when he took off, she just dropped them. “You are not my friends.” Good for her.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

Holiday Road

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Road Trip!!

I tend to like ensemble pieces, and I loved this one. To me it was the ultimate road movie with lots of interesting characters, intriguing stories, good humor, and touching, satisfying conclusions to the individual stories. And it even had a pretty nice romance in there. We meet nine diverse people at the Portland airport on their way to Denver for Christmas. The flight is canceled and, organized by the female part of the future romantic duo, (we’ve already gotten the meet cute out of the way) come together and prevail on the other half of the future couple to share his 15-passenger van to Denver. Because there is a problem on the interstate, they decide to go the back roads, and adventures, mishaps, and many opportunities for Christmas cheer abound.

At first, none of the passengers are particularly likable, some less so than others. But as we learn their stories and get to know them we start to care for and root for them to have their happy endings. Their pasts and the reasons they are going to Denver are revealed gradually. Just enough clues and information are eked out to intrigue us and heighten our curiosity about them before we hear their whole stories. This is done via a young social media influencer who is one of the sometimes merry, sometimes not merry, band and who is filming the journey for her 100,000+ TikTok followers. They call themselves “the Van Clan” and as time goes by, their journey starts to go viral. None of the nine are shortchanged and their stories flow smoothly and naturally. The writer and director were on their toes with this one.

I won’t synopsize the group’s stories, but tell you just a bit about them. The two who are destined to become a couple are a risk-averse dating app developer and the ring leader of the group, an adrenalin junkie and travel/adventure writer. She is caught searching frantically through her knapsack for medication that is not there. We have a mother and son at odds who are traveling to Denver to meet his birth mother. There is a grouchy old guy with a sack of cash who is going to visit his daughter, as is a down-on-her-luck young woman who is a talented singer. A Chinese couple who barely speak English with an estranged son in England are traveling to visit her sister she has not seen in many years. And getting them to open up about themselves is the young vlogger who has a journey of her own.

Of all of the really excellent swing-for-the-fences Hallmarks I have seen and admired so far this season, this one, which was a bit under the radar with only 2 known but not high-profile Hallmark actors, is my favorite so far. It had both humor and heart and, Bonus!, there was never a dull or nonsensical moment. Well, there was one, actually, but that’s OK. I probably missed the explanation. And I don’t care. Something to watch for on my next viewing, because I will be watching this one again.

Rating: 9 out of 10.

If I Only Had Christmas

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Interesting Effort

There sure are a lot of mean reviews for this movie. Sounds like some are trying to knock the ubiquitous Candace off of her Hallmark throne. I am not a huge Candace fan, but she’s harmless* and she has never looked lovelier than in this tribute to The Wizard of Oz. I thought it was very cleverly done with the names, the characters, and the situations. There wasn’t much of a plot, but at least it wasn’t a stale rehash of the same old Hallmark set-pieces. I watched it to the end with no fast-forwarding, and that’s worth at least a 6 or a 7. I’m not sure why she got so mad at “Glen Goodman” (Glenda the Good Witch, Ha Ha) at the end, but that’s just standard Hallmark procedure to provide some tension and to set up the happy ending.

*Clearly, I underestimated her.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

December 1, 2020

Crashing through the Snow

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**Spoilers**

Is Hallmark Growing Up?

This one had an interesting dynamic and was not in the usual Hallmark playbook of magic Santas, country good/city bad, save the town/store/festival, and countless others too many to mention.

A mother finds herself at her ex-husband’s girlfriend’s estate at Christmas locked in a competition with the girlfriend for her two daughters’ attention. I’ll let that sink in. The slightly estranged brother of the girlfriend shows up uninvited and Mom and brother are attracted to each other. The mother and ex-husband are on good terms. The girlfriend, who invited Mom when she found out that Mom had never been away from her kids at Christmas, is not evil. She is really nice and loves the kids and the ex-husband.

So where’s the conflict and drama? That’s the thing. There wasn’t much. They are all just so nice. The girlfriend, anxious to please and trying too hard, overschedules the kids leaving no time for Mom and her daughters’ own Christmas traditions. Mom starts feeling like a third wheel at the Kate, Jeff, and Daughters’ Show. The brother feeds into her insecurity and starts wresting the girls’ attention away from Kate and toward Mom with a variety of activities that aren’t on Kate’s itinerary. Now Kate’s feelings are hurt. But he means well (really). He has a complicated relationship with his sister.

The big crisis is when the oldest daughter runs away when Dad proposes to the girlfriend at dinner without warning. Bad move, Dude. Mom to the rescue, straight out of a romantic hot tub event with the brother. But ex-husband takes ownership of his thoughtless faux pas, girlfriend Kate smooths things over, and all is well.

There is a lot more going on, of course, involving a possible career move by the brother and family complications.

It was well acted by all, although I thought the ex-husband was a bit miscast. The klutzy Mom (spoiler alert) even manages NOT to break the stepmother’s hand-blown Venetian ornament. Yes, there is a stepmother. But she’s nice too! There was some good physical comedy involving the Mom’s klutziness. And good for Hallmark for not basing a Christmas romance on silliness and shenanigans, but the authentic emotion and complicated feelings involved in the formation of new family ties and big change.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

July 11, 2021