A Perfect Christmas List

Predictable and boring plot, forced romance, mediocre performances, and incredible lack of originality, I don't recommend it.

Over the past two years or so, my Christmas film completest quest (made up for primarily those from Hallmark and Lifetime) has been very interesting but also hit and miss. Some were very charming, easy to digest and lovely watches with good casts, providing that one doesn't expect too much. Others were very dull, cheesy, too sentimental and badly written and acted with excessively predictable and thin stories (due to doing nothing new with familiar formulas).

Unfortunately, 'A Perfect Christmas List' is one of the films in the latter category. Have actually seen worse Christmas films overall, but what could have been a decent warm-hearted film turned out to be anything but with nearly everything falling as flat as one can get. 'A Perfect Christmas List' is not a complete and utter disaster as there is one performance that stops it from being so, and lifts it to a very weak film with many terribly executed elements.

That good performance comes from a charming and perky Marion Ross.

Also thought that the production values were quite nice, especially the scenery.

Everything else fails. The rest of the acting is a mix of looking ill at ease to shameless overacting. Despite his part not being massive, Richard Karn does grate from trying far harder than he needed to and it does stick out. Didn't find myself caring for most of the flimsily fleshed out to the point of dullness and stale stereotypical characters, with only Ross' having much spark or rootability. The romantic chemistry is practically non-existent and the romance itself in writing is completely charmless and strained, not to mention very underwritten.

Furthermore, the music is too loud and too much of one mood. The dialogue continually sounds awkward, and is very cheesy and over-sentimental too. The pacing is sluggish (direction likewise), especially in the over-stretched middle act. The story is very thin and predictable, the final third is of the kind that has a contrived dramatic situation and ends on a very pat note. The lack of warmth and charm is noticeable and the Christmas spirit didn't seem there either, it all felt bland. Do agree that the theft scene was very out of place and brought a temporarily mean spirited edge to the story.

In conclusion, weak. 3/10.

I put this as background while I was setting up the Christmas Tree and i'm so glad I didn't put 100% of my attention of it because this was bad.

So, same plot as always: granddaughter goes home during the holidays because Grandma had an accident. Grandma forces daughter and granddaughter, who had been apart for a while, to spend time together while doing the typical activities of the season.

This was sad. I mean, the story itself was cute, it was about family and the romance was only the secondary plot. But, there was no chemistry, bad acting, bad direction. The whole thing was bad. Besides, they commit a felony during the movie and we are just gonna let it slide?

If we compare, Hallmark movies are Oscars worthy compared to this.

Another film about happy Christmas, with an American dream, white, blond, blue-eyed and happy families, being happy, in their perfect and happy places, cute, totally convenient, sometimes embarrassing, another Christmas film, we reveal ...

This is a nice family movie with plenty of humor. It is mostly a formula movie, but I like the formula.

Marion Ross is her usual self. Quite good, at least given this material.

Beth Broderick has some really good scenes as her character must deal with some unpleasant realities, other than what she believes about her mother.

Yanellie Ireland does a great job as a deaf child abandoned by her parents who lives in a children's home.

Michelle trying to put the mother's needs first is, of course, hilarious.

Who is that handsome soldier in the photograph?

Is this appropriate for family viewing? Pretty much. You just have to be prepared for some of what might be called "adult themes", but nothing that older children shouldn't see, and probably not a problem for most young children.

The one thing I disliked: Christmas music should not be rock and roll from the 50s or even 70s soft rock performed by cutesy female vocalists. And I am not open to new songs about Christmas. A couple of the old favorites are here, with "Silent Night" as pleasant background music, and "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" on a saxophone outside the grocery. The sax player is part of a memorable scene involving a concert everyone seems to enjoy, though some of the instruments are heard only by the movie audience. The real "performers" work at the grocery and are playing non-traditional "instruments".

It's a nice experience for the holidays.