All About Christmas Eve

While binging on Christmas movies I came across this Sliding Doors holiday remake. The story moves along and has a good cast.

The movie was ok, but why oh why the middle school art? I couldn't stop laughing at her "Art" at the gallery.

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.

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.

Every year there are so many Christmas TV movies and some of them are pretty lame and too cute. This one is above average because of the alternate scenarios thing going on - one where she makes a business trip and one where she doesn't. The formula usually works and in this movie, it keeps things interesting enough to see how things turn out.

Haylie Duff performs adequately as the party organizer. Chris Carmack as the tech big shot she has to organize a party for. Idol alum Diana De Garmo makes a cameo but her song is a bit underwhelming. Laguna Beach's Stephen Colletti plays her unfaithful boyfriend. Connie Selleca plays her boss and she looks young and amazingly recognizable from her Hotel days.

If you have to choose one Christmas movie to watch to relax this one isn't a bad choice since it's a little different.

An early line of dialogue says it all as protagonist Eve references 'It's a wonderful life' - borrowing slightly from the Frank Capra classic as we get two portraits of what the go-getter's future may hold. It's a decent concept. But without considering the content otherwise, I think the very structure of the feature is a bit of a problem. A few minutes at a time, we see how Eve's life will play out if she makes a flight, or not. The shifts in mood from one scene to the next make for a little whiplash - to say nothing of the dubious transitions crafted with post-production CGI. 'All about Christmas Eve' is reasonably enjoyable for the most part, but it also surely would have benefited from a more delicate, mindful touch.

The flourishes of inelegance also apply to other aspects of the film. Some passing dialogue is pointedly dated (including references to ShamWow, Kardashian sex tapes, and more), and some other lines rather elicit a double-take. Fine as the concept may be overall, the leaps between ostensibly concurrent timelines is a bit of a shock not just for the changes in tone, but for the extremity of the different portraits: one perfectly vibrant and happy, and the other ever more dour and depressing with mounting troubles. Though it may be technically true, it doesn't meaningfully feel like the picture is very well balanced with each half going to such stretches.

Questionable though the plot structure is - in fairness, each part in and of itself is mostly done fairly well, with generally able writing, direction, and performances. Sure, it's less than perfect with occasionally untactful or ill-minded bits. Not least of all given the noted dichotomy of storytelling, it tends to seem a smidgen ham-handed at points - and toward the end, distinctly heavy-handed. Yet there's also some definite scattered cleverness, and where star Haylie Duff is concerned in particular, I'll say that the constant flips from coast to coast enable her to demonstrate range, nuance, and personality as an actress, even within the confines of this TV movie. Speaking as someone who couldn't name anything else Duff has done before or since - hey, she's not bad! Why, broadly speaking, I think the supporting cast also do a fine job realizing their characters.

I keep adding qualifiers as I speak to the worth of 'All about Christmas Eve,' however, and not without reason. The 10-15 minutes before the final scene are emphatically disordered and frankly dubious as the narrative becomes jumbled and confused. For all the curiosities and indeed peculiarities of what the movie represented throughout its length, at the most critical juncture it feels like 'All about Christmas Eve' isn't sure what it actually wants to be, the precise story it has to tell, or the themes it intends to convey. Once again I can only do a double-take - the very, very end is written clearly enough, but what we get is effectively two parallel roads that end in a single avenue, but only after taking 10-15 minutes to become knotted, untidy, and chaotic. So poorly considered is this vital moment that my regard for the whole absolutely drops.

More so than not, even for the issues it carries for most of its runtime, I think this is a pretty good TV movie. The performances are swell, direction and technical craft are solid, and if spotty, the writing is sufficiently adept. So why are we given such an unwelcome, unnecessary hurdle so close to the finish line?

Make no mistake, there are worse kindred features out there that one could watch. Ultimately, though, it turns out that there are also most assuredly better ones. It's a shame, really - I want to like this more than I do. I did, for about 70 some minutes, like this more than I do. It's an okay view if one comes across it. When all is said and done, though, this falters - and unless you're an especial fan of someone in the cast, this simply isn't essential.