Ein (fast) perfektes Weihnachten

Worst Christmas movie I have ever seen. The writers must have been miserable when they wrote this because other than the grandmother and ex girlfriend there is not a single likeable character. Be prepared for a mama's boy, his angry girlfriend (who is also a thief), his bratty sister, his overbearing, insulting mom, and a psychotic neighbor. Seriously, I realize that Hallmark Christmas movies are junk food for the soul but I enjoy getting caught up in the sentiments of the season as much as the next person. The problem here is that the characters are bad people who are no fun to watch. Do yourself a favor and skip this awful mess.

A Perfect Christmas Carol (2023) -

The films of this 2023 festive run seem to be bringing in a selection of new men and I'm not sure that I'm totally in to that, because I'm still very much a fan of the regulars like Luke Macfarlane, Andrew W. Walker and Jesse Hutch. In this one I was introduced to Preston Vanderslice who played Max and he already seemed too old to have a healthy chance of going forward each year to churn out 2 or 3 films for every season and holiday. He could end up being one of the older supporting cast very quickly.

As such, it was also hard to find him attractive, which is where I tend to lose interest in these made for TV specials. The leading men are ultimately the goal of the story after all, with the ladies doing what they can to let them in, so if I don't buy that, I can't really enjoy the journey.

I also wasn't a fan of Carol played by Stephanie Bennett, mostly because of her quite obnoxious character, but also because her acting wasn't brilliant either. Her best friend Benji (Carly Fawcett) was really terrible though and stood out so awkwardly. It was mostly her interactions that put me right off watching this all the way through. She was far too hyper and "Extra". I was also sure that Max should have recognised her when she turned up at his Mothers house.

And the Mother was an absolute cow. He needed to see that about her.

Carol's idea that she would try to steal the recipe from the matriarch was ludicrous from the absolute beginning.

Other than that, the timeline seemed a bit off, with her going to his families house for Christmas to get a recipe for the restaurants menu to be sold before the big day? I didn't find out any more than that before I had to give up on it and find something more enjoyable to enrich my life with instead.

Unscored as unfinished.

-IMDB did not have the full listings to add all of the actors names at the time of writing this review.

I chose to watch this movie based on the cast. Huge disappointment. Mean Christmas story and flagrant disrespect of others. What made the writers want to tell this kind of story and ruin the concept of Christmas? Not sure. The plot did not make sense and the redemptive moment really was not redemptive. Overall, I think the movie is evil, deceptive and disgusting, "A Great Way to Ruin Christmas" should be the title. There may be other people who disagree but I would rate this one a "Zero" if that was an option. Sad because Preston, Kate and Stephanie have performed well in other movies that I have watched. Definitely not one for younger viewers due to the sexual concepts and offensive behaviors.

The boyfriend was not very convincing playing straight so it made it hard to suspend your disbelief and really buy into this relationship. Very over the top acting from everyone and was a bizarre plot with a 40 something year old guy crying because his mom was mean to his girlfriend and he couldn't stand up to her.

The timeline as mentioned by previous reviewer didn't make sense because she was supposed to be trying to perfect some Christmas recipe for work but that plot was abandoned and you never really heard about it again. Another odd scene where she and the mother supposedly stay up all night making their bake off recipe but the next day the contest doesn't start until 4 pm so you are supposed to believe they baked all night then fell asleep as the kitchen table until 4 pm. The friend coming to the town to pretend to be a townie was a strange plot.