Moonlight & Mistletoe

A great film for the holidays. It follows a formula but the package works well. Characters develop and become very familiar. Picturesque setting with all the classic elements of a Christmas film. Good guy, bad guy, goal to keep the pace. You want everything to work out. Wholesome and charming. Great family movie.

This is a fairly run of the mill story for Christmas. Candace Cameron-Bure as Holly scrambles when she finds out her dad has failed to manage Santaville, the family business, and the debt is huge.

I thought that Holly changed her tune about Santaville a little too quickly from - I want nothing to do with that place I grew up unnoticed by my father; to - I have to save MY home.

There was barely any screen time for the romance. There wasn't much in the usual stock of Christmas nostalgia besides Santa and lighting the tree.

The story is pretty much predictable from early on. The acting is decent.

(Since I watched Christmas Land first, I didn't realize how blatantly Christmas Land stole its plot from this movie only the ending was more insulting than this one.)

Have liked Hallmark regular Candace Cameron Bure in many other things, primarily Hallmark's festive output, and consider her one of Hallmark's better regular leading ladies. Have been pleasantly surprised by the quality of some of her films as well. Am a lot less of a fan of Tom Arnold, who often has annoying characters that he tends to overdo and tends to be a not very likeable presence in. While loving Christmas and liking a fair share of Hallmark's Christmas films, part of me was expecting the two to not gel at all.

2008's 'Moonlight and Mistletoe' was a very pleasant and welcome surprise. It didn't blow me away and is not one of my favourite ever Christmas films, but expectations were not massive in all honesty for the film and it was to my relief that it turned out much better than expected and among the best of Hallmark's 2008 Christmas films. There are a lot of good things about 'Moonlight and Mistletoe' and what sounded like they would be problems were not problems at all.

'Moonlight and Mistletoe' isn't perfect. The story does have some too easy and over too quickly conveniences in the latter stretches that felt forced and pat. There is conflict with the misunderstandings but it is forced and rushed again, not unusual for Hallmark.

While the characters generally didn't bore or annoy me, part of me felt like there could have been more development to them. A couple, including Nick, seemed too perfect from the start or too prematurely in alternative to going on a character journey that sees growth. The latter of which being the case with Bure. Barbara Niven overdoes her role and her character was over the top annoying.

A lot is great here however. Bure is immensely charming and her likeability is difficult to resist. The biggest surprise of 'Moonlight and Mistletoe' was seeing how good Arnold is, he is surprisingly very likeable and sympathetic here and not irritating at all. One of his better performances in a long time in my view. The chemistry between the two was another welcome surprise, that sounded like too much of a gross mismatch because of the two different acting styles and character personalities but there is a real warmth between the two and their attraction is believable.

The production values still manage to be pleasing. It's not too drab or garish in photography, the editing didn't seem rushed or disorganised and the scenery has a real charm to it. Some of the music has some pleasant nostalgic moments. Dialogue isn't stilted and doesn't go too heavy on the cheese or schmaltz. While the story was problematic, it was not a disaster by any stretch. Is light-hearted and really warms the heart without going into over-saccharine territory despite being familiar territory in tropes and thematically

Despite not being mind-blowing this surprised me in a good way. Definitely worth seeing. 7/10.

"You can never be too busy for Christmas." Another formulaic story but does it work? Eh, so so. This made-for-TV movie from the Hallmark Channel stars Candace Cameron Bure (D.J. Tanner in Full House) and the usually entertaining Tom Arnold. She stinks but he's great and really brings true charm and Christmas warmth to the screen. Great location in Chester, Vermont -- that's the name of the town it takes in and the name of the town where it was filmed which is different from so many movies where a fictional name is used. Overall, not a terrible Christmas movie but nothing special.

5.5 / 10 stars

--Zoooma, a Kat Pirate Screener

I'm afraid I find the performances in this drama about a man who runs a 365-day-a-year Santa Claus Village that is about to go under (Tom Arnold) and his daughter who moved away (Candace Cameron Bure) rather poor. Tom Arnold is clueless and nasal until the plot calls for a bit of warmth and Miss Bure, while very pretty, is shrill.The other actors are good, but their roles seem to be matters of revealing the secrets that made them come to Santaville for some warm fuzzy moments. In fact, that seems to be the entire set-up of this movie: conflict, then warm fuzzy moment, and the performances make it all seem very calculated.

Even the camera work supports this: consider, if you will, the scene where Tom Arnold and Candace Cameron Bure finally bond. The are sitting at the dining room table, going over his mementos of his dead wife. Instead of shooting it in an extended two-shot, which would have been more difficult to achieve and hence more expensive, but more effective, it is shot in a series of close-up reaction shots: basically, instead of two people together, it winds up two people apart. Using a yellow light for atmosphere does not make up for missed opportunities in the service of a small budget, alas.