Christmas in Pine Valley

The script isn't good especially some of the dialog. The plot was hokey, a quality publication does a lot of fact checking and would have unmasked the deception early. The deception didn't bother me, it's a movie it's not real. A family in this day and age doesn't necessarily mean the members have blood or legal ties, they can just be good friends that feel like a family. Not the worst rom-com I've ever watched, but it's not great. The DB says it was filmed in Savannah, GA which is an odd place to film a Christmas movie, but the locations were nice.

Andrew Biernat and Marc Herrmann are both male models, which is obvious. Rene Ashton and Kristina Cole have been in other films I've seen The rest of the cast was good, not the usual actors we're used to seeing in Canadian made rom-coms.

I write my reviews as if I'm talking to my grandmother, so I always try to find something nice to say.

I think I would have to tell her to watch Gilligan instead.

The plot involves a small company selling hand made products from a farm who inadvertently create the impression they are a family, and are forced to carry out the deception in order to obtain the big order that will save them from foreclosure.

The lead actress is ok, she has her moments, but the leading man is basically a male model type who has yet to learn the acting craft.

I did enjoy the "sister" character, and some of the scenes involving wood-chopping and jealousy were almost amusing, but the plot was trite and the ending illogical and forced.

I can understand why GAC buried this one in mid-November.

Sorry, that's as nice as I can be.

The first problem with this movie was Andrew Biernat. The pine trees in the movie are less wooden than most of his acting. He just had no fire in some of the most important lines. Even though he doesn't have a lengthy list of credits, there are enough I'm surprised he was this bad.

The premise itself is sort of the flip side of the FAR superior Five Star Christmas, where a family pretends to NOT be a family, but guests of a lodge. Here a group of friends pretends to be a family to live up to the impression people have gotten from a blog about the farm and the business.

Most of the scenes regarding that are far too awkward for the reporter to have done anything but realize things were not as presented, and sadly there were many scenes that just didn't make a lot of sense ... such as when he immediately intruded to tell the female lead her pretend fiancé was wrong for her. We didn't buy that would happen when and as it did. That's just one example.

This story COULD have been funny and entertaining with good writing, but it didn't get that.

Christmas In Pine Valley (2022) -

Andrew Biernat was very handsome, but alas he was not enough to keep me watching this film for that long.

I found it hard to believe that an article on a small family run farm business would take days to achieve or that any magazine would pay the costs to have him stay for a week at Christmas to write it, regardless of the previous errors in his writing. I'd be surprised if an article like that took more than an hour for interviewing and a few hours to write and it would have been written months in advance anyway.

The panic that ensued after leading lady Kristina Cole as Natalie realised that they weren't actually the family business that she had been suggesting online, but a rag tag bunch (Who would undoubtedly have considered themselves a family by the end of the film if I could have watched it that far) was farcical and these deceitful films are really getting tedious, because they lack any imagination and are more predictable than ever, having been done so many times and none of them that successfully in my opinion.

I also hate dishonesty and the ridiculousness that followed to maintain the lie when the truth would work just as well. So when it got to the lie about Natalie getting married I had to turn it off. It was just another deception on top of what was already too much.

And it may seem picky, but some of the decorations were very basic and tatty and it was incredibly obvious that they hadn't put much time or thought in to the set dressings or for that matter the film as a whole.

Natalie was over the top and Josh was quite boring and not played by the best actor. It was a good job he was so pretty and that was the only reason I made it as far as I did with this one.

Unscored as unfinished.

An "innocent" lie or secret is a common trope in Christmas movies. Likewise big contract needed to save the "family" farm. Throw in reporter, Josh, sent to do a piece on the business which threatens to become an expose. There is also a fake fiancé and a fake marriage. Many of these have slight twists in the way they are presented especially the fake fiancé situation.

The acting is poor at times but mostly OK. The dialogue can be a bit odd, but there are some cute sequences too.

Another reviewer pointed out that the "family" is so inept at explanations to Josh. What's sad is that so many of the explanations should flow naturally even if this group is not really biological family so why would they fumble?

It is also uncomfortable that the lies grow more serious and less innocent, less "white". How the fake fiancé is established is a little ridiculous. So many of the gags are high on the silly meter. The basic lie comes up constantly one way or another.

Kristina Cole has a sweetness consistent with a typical girl next door. She definitely seems low key for the CEO of the business. She and Andrew Biernat have the potential for great chemistry but two things interfered with my appreciation of it. First Biernat has almost no spark in his performance. Second, and more significant, is the lying.

I don't think it is a spoiler to say that the underlying theme of the movie moves toward a sort of redefinition of what a family is apart from strictly biological. This is not a new idea especially for holiday movies. Many would consider the idea that family includes our closest friends to be valid. What might be different about this movie is the this "family" excludes any biological relatives.

So why is it a lie as far as the movie premise goes? Part of that is in misrepresentations in the blog, but even those are not unusual in the world of blogging. The movie is a little vague but implies Natalie wrote about traditions that were never followed by this "family". I think that and the perpetuation of the lies with Josh is where I have a problem that makes it hard for me to enjoy the inevitable HEA.

This movie has a ton of potential and a lot of positives, but for me the dishonesty, the intent to deceive, trumped that. Note to self - skip watching this again.