Coyote Creek Christmas

After some disappointments so far in the Countdown to Christmas, I was looking forward to this movie because it featured our (my wife and I's) favorite male lead in Ryan Paevey.

We immediately noticed the visually poor pairing with Janel Parrish, who is too young, short, and frankly, not in Ryan's league. However, Janel usually plays energetic, adorable characters, and so we hoped that her character would overcome the superficial disparity between the leads.

Unfortunately, this movie went the opposite way. Instead of Paige, the main female character, winning Dylan, the male lead, and us over with her charm, passion, joy, and kindness, she spends at least the second half of the movie angry at Dylan for no good reason, while he makes the situation worse, and even more unrealistic, by repeatedly apologizing for something that wasn't his fault. The final half hour of the movie is essentially Dylan moving heaven and earth to please Paige, even though there is no clear indication that she deserves it.

Maybe I'll sweeten slightly to this movie with repeated viewings, but my first impression is that this movie never overcomes this manufactured conflict or its rather one-sided resolution.

Unfortunately, we are seeing a trend in 2021's slate, at least early, that started in bombastic fashion in "Boyfriends of Christmas Past." The issue is that the female lead often represents a ultra-modern feminist view that every woman deserves a great guy, regardless of her actual actions towards that guy. The female leads are brimming with entitlement while the male leads are going into full simp mode. That is NOT romance.

Why was Paige mad at Dylan and not at her parents? It wasn't Dylan's place to tell her about selling the inn! It was absolutely her parents job - no matter how difficult it was to approach the subject. If I'd been Dylan - I would have run far and fast. Paige was completely unreasonable. Sometimes I wonder where the writers heads are at (well, maybe not ... it's quite obvious). That's not how a normal person reacts...

AND while we're at it - why does EVERY movie now have to include the"gay" angle? It was absolutely NOT necessary to the story - it was thrown in to keep it "woke." I am by no means a homophobe - I have a gay brother and niece. We've accepted them and their spouses with open arms. Leave it out unless it's essential to the story. Just throwing it in to be "woke" is absolutely annoying. (Last year's The Christmas House" did it right ...)

Overall, this is a pretty ordinary and unoriginal (even for Hallmark) Christmas movie with some decent acting. It does, however, do a good job of getting you (the viewer) into the Christmas spirit via some festive scenes and some beautiful scenery, props, and sets. And don't forget Charlotte the marmot, you got like 'find the marmot' tradition in Coyote Creek. The protagonists in this story are Paige (played by Janel Parrish), a career-driven woman at an event-planning business where she has been feeling unappreciated of late, and Dylan (played by Ryan Paevey), a single father who gave up on love when his wife left him to raise their son Noah (played by Azriel Dalman). Both find themselves in Coyote Creek this Christmas holiday. Paige, who is looking forward to spending the holiday at her parents' Coyote Creek Inn and continuing its Christmas traditions, meets Dylan, who is there scoping out the 'mom and pop' inn as a potential investment for him and his brother's development corporation. And so our story begins, as the two start spending time together, enjoying all that this scenic town and inn in the Rockies has to offer during Christmas. Though the plot was predictable and unoriginal, it was pleasant enough and did keep me engaged (for the most part). However, as other reviewers have pointed out, the plot was overly complicated around the selling of the Inn. Simply put, it is unclear why the parents did not tell their daughter they were selling, especially if they thought she had no interest in returning to Coyote Creek. The acting overall was pretty good. I usually enjoy Paevey's Hallmark movies. For example, his performance in last year's, A Timeless Christmas, was strong. He had this warm and gentle vibe to his performance here, which I enjoyed watching on screen. Parrish was pretty good, though I had a difficult time connecting to her performance in some scenes. The chemistry between the two was much more 'low key' in this one than in other Hallmark movies, which potentially explains some of the reviews. I felt, it worked well; that is, it was convincing enough for this story. As I alluded to above, I enjoyed the Christmas atmosphere and feel of the movie, which is one of the things I like about Hallmark films. The find Charlotte the Marmot tradition was fun and cute. The 'Christmas around the World' theme at the inn was a nice touch. I also really enjoy those scenes where Hallmark has these educational moments by including information on and/or historical accounts of particular Christmas cultures and traditions. In this one, we learned about cobwebs on Christmas trees in Ukrainian folklore. All in all, it is an entertaining Christmas movie, not one of Hallmark's best but certainly not one of their worse.

The story was just okay. I thought the lead actresse's character was very harsh toward her parents and the Ryan character. She was controlling, didn't let the parents talk to her, when they were trying to be upfront with her. She took over and wouldn't let them talk. The two had chemistry and that was about it. I prefer watching the older movies like "The Christmas Card" and "Christmas Shepherd" which were good stories. Also, they are putting actors/actresses together that don't even click or don't have chemistry. The older "Hallmark Hall of Fame" holiday movies are better than these, as well. I am so disappointed in the new movies.

Anything with Ryan Paevey automatically rates higher with me. He's a natural. I enjoyed the story and the locale was great. I did, however, want to give "Noah" a haircut.