With Love, Christmas

Like many Hallmark movies, the background music is non-stop and too loud. Sometimes even drowns out the dialogs. And, it just keeps going at the most inappropriate times. Remember, silence can golden. Fun show, typical holiday movie from Hallmark. We enjoyed Emilie Ullerup in the lead. Would like to see more of her.

With a plot more structurated than other Christmas movies, it results both entertaining and endearing. It's Christmas time at the ad. Company where Melanie works. And the invisible friend whom she has to give a present is one who does not care about Christmas at all. While she tries to find out what would he like for Christmas she begins to know him well...and in the meantime their boss pairs them for a difficult client's Christmas ad. campaign. Since the communication with the invisible friend is by whatsapp, he does not know who she really is. Will the chemistry between them still remain when he discovers who his invisible friend really is? Not much of a mystery really but nice entertainment and enjoyable picture with plausible players in a more developed than usual plot...and do not miss the fairytale ending! Recommended.

As part of my 2024 December Christmas movie marathon, I had the chance to sit down and watch the 2017 movie "With Love, Christmas", from director Marita Grabiak. Of course I had never heard about the movie prior to sitting down and watching it, but then again sappy Christmas movies is usually not my go-to type of entertainment.

Based on the cover alone, and with it being a Hallmark movie, it seemed that this movie would be particularly sappy. But I still opted to give writers Danni Hodson and Marcy Holland a fair chance.

And I am glad that I did, because "With Love, Christmas" turned out to be one the better sappy Christmas movies that I have watched. The storyline was well-written, and it had all the right contents to be a good, albeit archetypical, sappy Christmas movie. But isn't that something that Hallmark excels at, really?

The acting performances were good, and the chemistry between leading actress Emilie Ullerup and actor Aaron O'Connell was good. They carried the movie quite nicely, and I was rather impressed with their performances. In fact, the acting performances in general throughout the course of the movie were good.

"With Love, Christmas" looked and felt like a proper Christmas movie, complete with fake snow and all. If you enjoy the sappy Christmas movie genre, then you will definitely enjoy this movie, that I guarantee.

I was genuinely and wholeheartedly entertained by this movie.

My rating of director Marita Grabiak's 2017 movie "With Love, Christmas" lands on a well-deserved seven out of ten stars.

I really liked the main character. She was flawless. Of course we have the little kid who is around too much. Only turn off that should have been real was that fake cotton snowball snowman outside. Get a real one! Loved the cat too. Enjoying most of the new Hallmark movies this season and am also enjoying many of the old ones. Oh yeah, do all blondes have dyed blonde hair with dark brown roots these days?

If you have seen your fair share of Hallmark Christmas films, it would be safe to say that you are very likely to know what to expect generally, especially regarding the fairly samey stories, and one shouldn't expect any more. Have seen my fair share myself and have always watched them with mixed expectations. That are either met and even exceeded, or the film completely misses the mark and does little with any potential.

'With Love, Christmas' was actually, seeing as the premise didn't overly excite me but sounded cute enough, more or less what was expected. Not a bad film with things that are done well and there is nothing offensively bad about it. Also not a particularly great one either with quite a lot of the common flaws in Hallmark's Christmas films evident. If anything, 'With Love, Christmas' left me feeling rather mixed as an overall whole.

Shall begin with 'With Love, Christmas' good things. The production values are very pleasing to look at, nice use of locations slickly shot. The music captures the Christmas feel very well and is not near as over-scored or intrusive as too many of a lot of Hallmark films. There is a light-hearted charm in enough places.

Emilie Ullerup is a very engaging female lead and easy to like, which is not always said for actresses playing similar characters in Hallmark Christmas films. The supporting cast also do well with what they have, with Rebecca Davis being a scene stealer.

Aaron O'Connell on the other hand came over to me as rather stiff and not fully connected with his character, even for a character meant to be uptight. He and Ullerup didn't seem to have much chemistry together and what little there was felt cold and forced in a relationship that never felt fully developed. Excepting Melanie, the characters don't have enough to them to make me invest properly in them and development-wise they are sketchy. They did try with Donovan as well, but his type of character has been done in Hallmark Christmas films so many times and with very little different here.

The script is often excessive on the cheese and is over-sentimental in others, some of it doesn't sound natural either. The story has its moments, but generally there is far too little of it and what there is is very standard, formulaic Hallmark and feels rather stale and contrived. There is a light-hearted charm here, but the cheese and schmaltz go into overload and it never properly connected with me emotionally. The music could have been used less and could have had a quieter tone.

In summary, not bad but not great. 5/10