All About Christmas Eve

My Christmas film viewings over-time have been a very mixed bag. With some surprisingly good hits, where regardless of how predictable they are succeed in being full of charm, warmth and heart so succeeding in being light-hearted and undemanding fun. But also some quite big misses, where the characters are not likeable, everything is forced and shallow with implausibility too in some of the worst cases, the acting and writing being weak and basically with just nothing to them.

Despite being a long way from perfect or being a complete hit, 'All About Christmas Eve' is thankfully closer to the former category. Certainly not a film to humbug on. As far as the 2012 Christmas output as part of my Christmas film completest sake goes, 'All About Christmas Eve' is in the high middle category (one would not think that looking at the rating here though) and does decently with one of the more intriguing premises of a Christmas twist ('Sliding Doors' with a festive twist), even if even more could have been done with it.

It does try to do a little too much, a danger with parallel structure stories, with too much crammed in in terms of events and characters and the switches from story to the other are not always seamless. Parts weren't explored all that well, with the identity of the person calling the girlfriend agreed being too vague.

At times the dialogue went too far on the cheese factor and was vulgar. Gib Gerard is very wooden as well.

Wooden is not something that Haylie Duff can be described as, she plays her role with a good deal of verve and charm. Connie Sellecca has fun as the boss character. Chris Carmack isn't as interesting but he seems at ease and engages with the material. The chemistry doesn't seem forced. The direction is not always in control of the story but there is enough skill on display. Neither the script or story are perfect in any shape or form, with the script particularly being easy to criticise, but the story does intrigue and provoke thought and doesn't come over as dull.

It is very professionally filmed and the locations are simply beautiful. A lot of Hallmark's Christmas films suffer from being over-scored, meaning being too constantly used and too loud. That isn't so big a problem here generally. While the characters are not meaty or original, none of them annoyed me and nor did they bore me. The leads were easier to connect to than expected. They also had personality traits that appealed and any negative traits were not exaggerated, which can be a common problem with female lead characters particularly in Hallmark's Christmas output.

Overall, decent if unexceptional and not always focused. 6/10.

As many people have mentioned this movie is parallel to the movie Sliding Doors especially in the beginning where Fired Eve (FE) catches her boyfriend in her own bed with another girl. This movie just isn't done as well as the original, although it does have a totally different twist on the ending. In that I like this one better.

Hillary Duff is OK, but not great. Likewise Chris Carmack. They do connect. Gib Gerard is terrible and so is his second girlfriend. Diana DeGarmo does a powerful rendition of O Holy Night.

The story has potential even to the extent that it is different from the original. LA Eve's story progresses pretty well except for Matt the original boyfriend . Who calls the girlfriend he is cheating on while he is right next to the one he is cheating with? And several times.

But I also had a problem with FE's story. For one thing, she doesn't start picking herself up until 3/4 of the movie is gone. Until then she does a lot of whining and not much else. It seems like a lot of wasted screen time that could have been put to better use.

Connie Sellecca is the boss we love to hate.

BTW there are at least two incidents of blatant sexual harassment that appear to be accepted without complaint.

All About Christmas Eve (2012) -

So this film was an obvious take on 'Sliding Doors' (1998) and I thought that was a nice touch for a made for TV Christmas production.

I would have liked it to have been a bit clearer which version of her was which though. Perhaps she could have hit her head in one reality and had to wear a plaster to distinguish that one from the other, but after a while it was easy enough.

And I didn't think that the romance between Aidan and Eve really had much time to develop, because of the 'Sliding Doors' back and forth, which may be why I couldn't buy their connection.

As has been true with so many of these films, another ten minutes could have made such a difference in that respect. Film makers - Stop restricting the flow of the story to fit a time slot please??

As for the actors, I personally thought that Chris Carmack as Aidan was lovely, despite the pointless scooter, which was obviously way too short to actually have been his, but I didn't think that Haylie Duff as Eve was right for him, she was too all over the place and she had such a "Poor Me" face, as if nothing bad had ever happened to anyone else. I just felt that she would bring him down and squeeze all the joy from him and she put up so many obstacles foe happiness with him. That might be a bit harsh?

Having said that, she did obviously work for the most ridiculous boss and the company clearly didn't have a behaviour management policy.

Actually, the business models in these films have always been so weird. One minute they might be sacked for doing a bad job and the next they might be heading the new office? Talk about extremes? Surely the bosses would have to give better grounds for dismissal than one failed account, if the employee had been doing well otherwise and the bosses certainly wouldn't want to sack the employee if they were in line to run a whole branch of the business provided that they did well?

So, yeah, that was a bit weird, like Tito (Patrick Muldoon), who was so slimey that it was literally dripping off of him. And the home wrecker was proper fugly too, like some sort of alien, there were definitely hints of 'Predator' (1987) about her.

Honestly, the film wasn't that bad, but there were definitely bits that weren't thought through properly, like the terrible artwork produced by the "Stunning Artist", which was at best something that you might find in a charity shop and from the 80's/90's. Once again it was the little touches that let it down and I'm not Haylie's biggest fan.

5/10.

BEWARE OF BOGUS REVIEWS. SOME REVIEWERS HAVE ONLY ONE REVIEW. WHEN ITS A POSITIVE REVIEW THAT TELLS ME THEY WERE INVOLVED WITH THE PRODUCTION. IF ITS A NEGATIVE REVIEW THEN THEY MIGHT HAVE A GRUDGE AGAINST THAT PRODUCTION. NOW I HAVE REVIEWED OVER 200 Christmas MOVIES. I HAVE NO AGENDA. I AM FARE ABOUT THESE FILMS.

This film makes statement that a woman can't be married and have a career.

From Lifetime comes a likable film about what is fate and what you really want in life. "All About Christmas Eve" stars Haylie Duff (7th Heaven) as junior event planner.

As the film opens, Eve is overseeing an unusual Bar Mitzvah with a Christmas twist. Eve has a demanding boss (Connie Selleca). Her boss likes what she did with this latest party. Pleased with Eve's work she now has eyes on her for a huge promotion. To get that job she has to land a huge client. This client lives in Los Angeles. So she has to miss Christmas with her family.

The next day Eve misses her plane to Los Angeles. Now she gets fired. Now she is out of a job. When she gets home she finds her boyfriend is cheating on her.

Later the Alternate Time where Eve makes the plane and is living large but she doesn't know her boyfriend is cheating on her! Also she becomes a different person that really isn't very nice. But which is the real time line and what is the alternate time line?

The film handles the alternate time line transitions with ease. It is a testament to all involved that this gimmick works as well as it does.

Because of the dual time lines the film has a faster pace then most Christmas theme films.

Enjoyable. In the distant future I will watch it again.

The two previous reviewers have already pointed out features I would have mentioned:

• The "Sliding Doors" plot parallel

• Diana DeGarmo appearing as herself, singing "Cantique de Noël" in English (i.e., "O Holy Night")

In addition, I would note that this is Chris Carmack's second appearance this season as the leading man in a Christmas movie, along with "A Christmas Wedding Date". So far, this is the more highly-rated of the two (and rightfully so, in my opinion). Previously, I'd seen him only as "the other guy," or in some other minor role.

Finally, here are some things you might not have seen if this had been a Hallmark movie:

• The cheating boyfriend in bed with another woman

• Two drag queen barflies (also mentioned previously)

• Haylie Duff's cleavage (I don't remember that from 7th Heaven!)

In short, here's a different bit of fun from the "typical" Christmas tale.

Note: Carmack's character's name is spelled Aidan in the IMDb credits, but that came up with a spelling alert when I typed it, so in my summary, I used the "corrected" form, Aiden, since I never saw the spelling on the screen. Eve's full name, however, appears both spoken and in print in the film; her fist name is Evelyn, but unfortunately, I can't remember the surnames of either lead character.