Christmas by the Book

There was zero chemistry between anyone. It felt like a coloring book by the numbers. The lead actress is far too thin, and has obvious lip fillers. I try to avoid commenting on actors looks, unless it is distracting. The pretend boyfriend Ted, felt like a community theater actor at best. He could barely keep eye contact with other actors in their scenes. Oddly enough I found that when the main character was hanging out or seen on screen with the older " entertainment mogul", that was the only guy she actually fit as a couple! Those two were more believable than she was with the other two very half hearted love interests. There was something very unlush about this production. It felt cheap. I am not sure what exactly caused that, lighting? film quality? This did not feel like a Hallmark movie at all. It felt like something from ION or some off brand production company. I know Hallmark is taking movies from other places to fuflill their huge quota of Holiday movies, but I would rather see less movies of a better quality. Finally, this movie had zero Christmas spirit or heart, it was just flat. I did watch the entire movie. I will not review a movie unless I have seen the entire movie.

At the time of this wrting, all the reivews of this movie are negative. While I think the criticisms were just I would recommend it to you to watch at least once.

I would agree on several things. First, the production values were lacking. Two, the plot was not really Christmas centric (this could have been a winter fest, spring fling, summer of fun, or fall harvest movie by simply mad libbing buzz words.

However, it had one thing most Hallmark Rom-Coms do not have. It had comedy. It was funny, with witty dialogue and situations. That carried the movie and made it stand out for me.

This may be my least favorite Hallmark movie of all times. At the Starr of the movie Chelsea is overdone. She is a romance expert with tons of bad eye makeup, a pencil thin body in a body hugging low cut dress and a terrible habit of pulling her chin into her neck that makes her a pile of wrinkles. Costars ate fine, story predictable, but her acting is so overdone. It does seem like they try to bring out her worst look, acting, everything. ALMOST finished it but left the last 32 mins and felt I had wasted my time.

Would have been a great story if Joanne and Val fell in love. Ted who?? Dell who??? I don't know them.

Unfortunately not every holiday Hallmark movie is a winner. This one...major miss. The lead actress is too young, too thin, and too unbelievable to be an expert in anything let alone a romantic lead. She's too uptight. The male lead would be okay with a different actress and the protagonist ex-girlfriend is a dud and a bad actress. Really, skip this movie. It's flat, not romantic or Christmassy and not up to our Hallmark standard of rom-com expectations.