The Christmas Bow

With a lot of time at home during the 2020 holiday season, my wife and I have watched nearly all of this year's Hallmark Christmas movies. In our experience, the ones that involve music can be cringe-inducing, so we were tempted to skip this one.

"The Christmas Bow" ended up being a terrific surprise, thanks mostly to Lucia Micarelli, whose considerable, multifaceted talents are on full display. Her character is given a believable backstory, and she plays her with quiet reserve and empathy. The director gives her some great moments to display her musical talent, and wisely frames the shots to show us that yes, she really is playing that amazing music!

All of the main cast is great in this, playing relatable characters whose motivations make sense. One scene in particular, with the main character's grandmother suffering from dementia, stands out for its sensitivity. It's a scene that ties the plot together and gives it much more weight than the usual Hallmark fare.

With this one, you can just tell that the creative team cared about the story. It almost feels like they wanted to give Lucia Micarelli a film worthy of her talent.

While this is not one of my favorites, and I wouldn't watch it again, this is one of the better effort o the year for Hallmark. The characters were complex and the script was well done. I kept wondering if she was suppose to be adopted since she didn't look remotely to be the same ethnicity as her parents/grandparent. Hallmark has a ways to go on their inevitability for this sort of thing.

Lucia Micarelli was a beautiful, wonderful surprise! Her acting was natural and she was so easy to watch. Plus her violin playing is stellar of course. She really carried this movie well. It was a typical Hallmark movie plot, and I enjoy poking fun at that fact, but I might actually have a favorite now!

I was a little worried that a musician as the female lead would make this a move that's a little hard to watch, but Lucia Micarelli did a wonderful job. If the whole violin thing doesn't work out for her, I believe she's set as an actress.

The casting of Lucia with Michael Rady was a stroke of genius, they were great together, completely believable as one of those couples that are perfect for each other. The attraction between the leads however, was a shy and timid type. I would have enjoyed it if the story would have given their romance a little more growing passion, as they made some pretty significant decisions in their lives for it.

We were treated to several looks at Micarelli's playing and from the very first note you can tell she is magnificent. With looks into both characters sweet and loving families and a little humor from a young cousin, this was a real pleasure to watch.

This is now my 8th Hallmark Christmas movie of the 2020 season. Overall, it is somewhere near the middle of the list thus far. That is, it was a pretty good Hallmark movie. The movie started strong; I enjoyed the first 5 minutes (the younger version of the leads); it was quite cute. Michael Rady is one of my favourite Hallmark leads; he does a great job in such roles. Again, here, he had a strong performance. Lucia Micarelli, on the other hand, had a mixed performance, at least that is what I thought. She had some real weak acting early on in the movie. To be fair, she did have some good moments and her chemistry with Michael was decent. But, overall, regarding her acting, I was not that impressed. Her musical performances, however, were excellent; I enjoyed this element of the film. The supporting cast was, for the most part, strong, though I wasn't a fan of Kate's parent early on. I did enjoy the grandfather and doctor (he was funny). The set and scenery were very polished (i.e., looked good), very festive - I liked the shop, for example. As usual, this Hallmark film was quite festive and provided a nice Christmas atmosphere. It is worth a watch this 2020 Christmas season, especially for fans of Hallmark.