Christmas on Cherry Lane

I was a huge Good Witch fan (I wish more of those were being made) and I love Catherine Bell and James Denton, which is why I was excited to see them together in a Hallmark holiday film. So, I came for the two of them...but found myself enjoying quite another storyline instead, that of John Brotherton (John Hamilton) and Erin Cahill (Lizzie). John and Lizzie play a couple who have just moved into their first home, expecting a new baby, money is tight, they haven't unpacked, and Lizzie's big family descends on them for Christmas when they expect to have a quiet Christmas Eve just themselves. Funny and real with each other, this was definitely the story at the heart of this film.

Cleverly the writers tied three stories in three different time periods together in the same house...and with some of the same people, like their neighbor on Cherry Lane played exceptionally by the same actress in all three time periods.

There were some inaccuracies with their time frames, but they did try to throw in some time period specific notes...like the oil crisis and a hallmark keepsake Christmas ornament. I appreciated having a foster child pay it forward and make another foster kid's Christmas special. That was a really nice touch.

This wasn't really a romance, but it was a family drama. If you like holiday family dramas then this might be for you.

I really enjoyed this movie and appreciate how Hallmark upped its game in terms of telling the stories of different families who share something special in common. Basically, things center around 7 Cherry Lane, a house called home to three different families spanning over five decades. Though each family's storyline is separate from the others, there are people and details of each storyline that are interwoven with the others, creating a vibe that's similar to This Is Us.

The families are young marrieds Lizzie and John, who are awaiting the birth of their first child; this takes place in the '70s. Then there's Regina, a forties-ish widow with two young-adult children, who's ready to move on with her life in the 90s era. Lastly, there's Mike and Zain, ready and hoping to welcome a child into their family in the present day. I don't want to give any more details because this movie is best enjoyed by discovering who's tied to who, how and when by the viewer. Wonderful cast of actors who had excellent chemistry with each other! Highly recommended watch.

I enjoyed this movie. It's well constructed and acted with good performances all round in particular I liked Vincent Rodriguez III as Jonathan Bennett's long-suffering carol singing partner. The 3 story lines weave seamlessly if somewhat confusingly together and there is a heartwarming end. What more could you want from a Hallmark LGBT inclusive Christmas movie? Well, I for one would like to see Hallmark (and others) push just a little further. For all its diversity credit, this film is still wholeheartedly about the conformity of the family ideal. The gay men are cute with the children. The adopted girl is set firmly on the path to become a little princess. Religion rears its secular head through the singing of carols. None of this bothered me too much - but one detail did. The gay kiss. This was very much a 'no sex please we're hallmark' movie. No shirtless reveal. No steamy shower scene, and the kiss between the two men is blink-and-you'll-miss-it brief, and shot carefully to be out of sight of the child. A pity.

This is really interesting that I'm saying this about a Hallmark movie. That's because it's incredibly different from any other Hallmark movie. Yes, they have the love. Yes they have all the other blah blah blah, yada yada yada. But I love the way that they took three different storylines from three different years in the same house and tied them all together. You just don't see that sort of thing these days. And, just when you think you've got it all figured out, they throw you a curveball. I like a nice curveball. I like it when a movie keeps me on my toes and I don't honestly see what's coming till almost the end. That's why I'm giving this one 10 out of 10. Well done whoever wrote this one.

For the first twenty minutes of this movie, before the commercial break I was lost. Or maybe disinterested is a better term. Then it closes before the break and says that the three stories we were watching are all actually happening on different timelines. Great, sounds fun. No. It's a slog. The stories are interconnected through the house the ALL live (or lived) in, but it doesn't really come together until the final five minutes of the movie, which left me a lot of time to wonder why I should keep watching. For a movie with Jonathan Bennett, I thought we'd see some funny moments, but no, it was all serious future-dad, fancy dinner chef drama. John Brotherton and Erin Cahill could have just had the whole movie to themselves and we'd have all been better off for it. And another thing, you don't keep having to mention "high oil prices" to tell us the year the events are taking place. We get it . . . Oil crisis. We just don't care.