It seems as if every couple of weeks Hallmark, or one of its growing list of imitators, is rolling out a new holiday premiere. Normally I ignore the absurdly pre-seasonal stuff (I’m not a big Christmas in July kind of guy), but now that Halloween is winding down and the “Countdown to Christmas” is officially upon us I figured I’d dive in at the deep end, and see how many Christmas TV movies I can watch before finding a really good one or tapping out exhausted and disgusted by humanity.
Faithful readers will be all too familiar with my mostly-hate/hate relationship with Hallmark-style Christmas movies and the Yuletide-industrial complex that has grown out of their popularity. I cherish Christmas, the sacred and the secular, and to see such shoddy filmmaking and cynical marketing meet with overwhelming success just leaves me shaking my head.
Even though I hate the game I don’t hate the players. I love that there are a hundred-plus new holiday flicks every season, and I’m thrilled for the fans who love them. I just don’t get it, but, as this post attests, I’m still trying to jump on that bandwagon and see and feel what all the Hallmarkies out there are raving about. There are lots of lovely people making entertainment for lots more lovely people, and I really want to be one of the latter, but I’m not optimistic.
Here we go…
(all films in this post should be 2022)
Noel Next Door
From the director of... Deadly House Call, Ice Road Killer, and Beware of the Midwife (and also 2019’s atrocious “Rock and Roll Christmas” )
Starring… No one I recognize, though the female lead Natalie Hall has done a few other “Christmas” movies.
I generally stay away from these cheap plastic knock-offs of real rom-coms / Christmas flicks (Filmed in Canada has become the Made in China of TV movies), but I’m ever the optimist, so I gave the first of the “Countdown to Christmas” season a shot.
It’s not good, but not good in a different, yet just as off-putting, way as the ones I used to watch and generally hate. Nothing interesting happens, none of the characters are likable (and having a visible disability isn’t a personality) or believable, and the romance is an afterthought.
The script couldn’t have gone through a second draft, and when I looked up the film’s writer, their only other credit is another holiday film featuring a character with a disability - assuming you consider color blindness a disability. (Yep that’s going to be a Christmas movie.) So I guess I can’t expect too much from a neophyte screenwriter but still…poor writing is poor writing.
Rating - Bah Humbug
We Wish You a Married Christmas
We Wish You a Married Christmas was somehow even worse than Noel Next Door. “How could it be worse? “ I asked myself Then I checked the director’s credits and the writers' credits and then I knew how.
There is no quality control, just product, an unceasing stream of product greedy consumed by it’s fans. I don’t get it. Is it like listening to The Grateful Dead or Techno music? Do you have to be high to really appreciate it? Are Moscato and Moscow Mules the shrooms and X of the Hallmark generation?
I’m two films in and I’m ready to tap out. Maybe it’s time for Hallmark to keep Christmas out it’s gosh darn mouth. Well, I have a bunch more to watch. Maybe the next one will be able to talk me off the ledge…
Rating: Bah frickin’ Humbug
A Kismet Christmas
Magic love cookies…at Christmas
So, was the third time the charm? Sort of. A Kismet Christmas was just about watchable. The cast was serviceable, the production design wasn’t awful, and the script, though cliché and a little cringe, shines in comparison to the previous pair. Most importantly it feels like a movie, not a great movie, and certainly not a great Christmas movie but it’s given me that tiny sliver of hope I need to carry on.
Highlights include lead Sarah Ramos, Marilu Henner, and an out-of-left-field Midnight Cowboy reference.
Rating: Not a magical love match but at least an effort was made.
A Cozy Christmas Inn
There’s literally nothing cozy about this dull plop of a product. And, what is the obsession these films have with real estate?
Criminally underuses Brian Doyle-Murray
Rating: Rancid peppermint.
Jolly Good Christmas
McCartney's Wonderful Christmastime under the opening credits? Whoa, this one must have had an actual budget, as opposed to the under-the-couch cushion change most seem to run on.
We have a new frontrunner. It’s not great, but it’s pretty OK, grading on a Christmas curve. There’s more real estate - Architecture division - but I won’t hold that against it. The leads are reasonably engaging and the patter's above average, I would have preferred the male lead not to have had to put on an obviously fake American accent though.
I hope this falls down the list quickly because if this is as good as it’s going to get I'm going to need a lot of very spiked egg nog just to make it through November.
Rating: A Christmas cracker, without the snap.
And now a brief detour to Great American Christmas…
Catering Christmas
As meh as meh can be. Not horrible but not watchable either.
I've actually ru a catering business in my deep dark past and you could probably make a decent comedy, an affecting drama, even a horror movie out of the things I've seen and heard on the job but instead GAC offers us this empty chafing dish of sadness.
Rating: How do you rate something that makes absolutely no impression on you?
Destined at Christmas
The core idea has promise but Destined at Christmas does nothing with it. After a Black Friday meet cute (great idea, abysmal execution) a pair of would-be lovers have to figure out how to find each other again after getting separated during a blackout. With more time and money this might have been a fun rom-com, but instead, we get a typical holiday rush job that might as well have been written by an AI. The leads are inoffensive, though I truly hope many of the supporting players got their roles through a random draw at the local Tim Horton’s parking lot because that would, at least, explain some of the line reads.
Rating: More like meht cute amirite?
Now back to Hallmark…
Christmas Bedtime Stories
Everyone seems to have been over their head with this one. A sentimental tale with no heart, a romance with no spark, a drama with no depth and an unearned, shallow, empty ending.
Military wife / single mom keeps the memory of her MIA husband alive through “Christmas Bedtime Stories” told to her daughter. An unexpected proposal leads to emotional complications.
Clearly there are far too many cheap Christmas movies being made each year and a shortage of qualified, experienced, talented people willing to work on them. This is what happens when you have to hire newbies and third stringers to make your movie and you don’t care because you’ll still probably make some money on it.
Bonus fact - Christmas Bedtime Stories is produced by Nancy Grace! Usually she’s investigating crime but this time she committed one against watchability.
Rating: Stolen holiday valour.
Ghost of Christmas Always
So I’m closing out my first run of these things with the best of the bunch.
Ghost of Christmas Always bureaucratizes A Christmas Carol’s ghost of Christmas past/present/future system in what instantly feels like the beginning of a holiday franchise. Not a particularly original idea but its not terrible. It definitely seems as if they gave this one a lot more time and effort than usual and it shows.
A "Ghost of Christmas Present" gets romantically entwined with her latest “Scrooging” target - complications ensue and then more complications ensue. It’s not great, the plot hits many cliched beats with the exception of one significant twist that comes a little bit too early to be a total surprise but is the film’s saving grace none the less, The performances are much better than average though they don’t necessarily elevate the material. But, grading on the Christmas movie curve this is as close to a winner as we might get these days.
Rating: Not bad at all, I might even watch the inevitable sequel.
So here’s the chart so far…
(if you're a fan of something I've panned, that's fine, I get it, we all have different taste and varying requirements of our entertainment. I won't judge you if you don't judge me.)
The Watchables
- Ghost of Christmas Always
- A Kismet Christmas
The Mehs
- Jolly Good Christmas
The Unwatchables
- Noel Next Door
- Catering Christmas
- We Wish You a Married Christmas
- Destined at Christmas
- Christmas Bedtime Stories
