Christmas Tree Lane

As much as I love both leads in this film, they are not two that I would put together and I think the film ends up being a bit middling, because the chemistry is not there, but it is a nice enough story.

How do you save a whole street that is due to be demolished? You put on a Christmas show of course, but what happens when the new hot guy in town turns out to be working for the developers?

Andrew W Walker is lovely here, but Alicia Witt is just a bit wrong in her part.

To me this looked like the typical Hallmark themed movie but with two of Hallmarks power leads in the main roles they managed to pull it off. I thought they had very good chemistry.

This is also the first time that I can recall that Alcia Witt has gotten to sing in one of her Hallmark movies, Christmas or otherwise, and she has a beautiful voice. That made the movie for me.

I usually really enjoy watching Andrew Walker's Hallmark films; he is a good actor in such roles. He did a decent job in this movie too. But there was no chemistry between him and Alicia Witt, at least, I did not see it. I felt Alicia's performance was rather weak, though, to be honest, I am not a huge fan of her Hallmark films. The supporting cast was great, especially Nate's parents. The movie is enjoyable enough and instills a bit of Christmas spirit. Worth a watch if you are familiar/like Hallmark movies.

Nothing original, which isn't unusual I suppose in these movies, but it was like a greatest hits collection of all the favorite tropes. Almost like it was a competition to see how many they could fit into 90 minutes. Good actors doing good work, but just lacking in anything that pulls you into the story because of how obvious the tropes are, and how little romance there actually is. Is this the new standard that the first and only real romance or kiss is at the very last moment right before the credits roll. I guess that would be ok if there were clearly visible sparks earlier on, that were not acted upon for propriety or other credible reasons. This movie had none of that. Oh well.

Andrew Walker and Alicia Witt are two of my favorite "Hallmark" actors, but this story is boring. It's too predictable and smarmy. The whole idea of a street rising up in protest is old-fashioned with few areas for originality. We all know that in the long run, the "little" person never wins and the dynamic should be for people to welcome change and find ways to meet it. Is there such a thing as an old-fashioned Christmas where profit is not the main motivator? We'd like to hope so, but how often do we see it.

Anway, this was a disappointing film for me and the only reason it got a 5 was for the two leads.