The Secret Gift of Christmas

The plotline of a personal shopper is not the most common one. Meghan Ory fills this role with a lot of positive energy. She certainly smiles a lot. When it comes to Christmas stories, I prefer the upbeat ones to those that sow doom and gloom through over half the movie. However, the story sets Bonnie up as being shallow.

There is nothing exceptional in this story. It is mostly about keeping Ory and Christopher Russell together as much as possible. There also isn't much tension beyond Patrick's resistance to being fancy and to social media.

There is a subplot where we see that Bonnie has a shopping addiction. The story doesn't really deal with this issue other than love conquers all. I am disappointed that for an issue like this that ruins some people's lives, it was treated, in my opinion, rather flippantly. It doesn't even add much tension to the overall story since there doesn't appear to be any ominous consequences threatening Bonnie.

As in many Christmas stories, the female lead bonds with the widower's daughter which always adds a little bit of positive flavor for me.

The acting is OK. There is some good dialogue.

7.9 stars.

The first part of this film was like a train wreck for me. I couldn't stop watching as I was intrigued by what appeared to be a failure, but it was still kinda fun. I love the actors, that wasn't the problem, but the way she acted, so gaudy and odd, almost like she was the weird second cousin of Mary Poppins or something. Couldn't quite put a finger on the mannerisms and oddness. Anyways, she does become endearing after a while, then I still couldn't stop watching because it was so darn entertaining and I had to continue this movie. But I had to go eat supper, so I paused it for a while and then came back to finish, and mostly it was great. The twist at the end, or near the end, was a bit deflating, didn't like how things went. Maybe it was just a simple misunderstanding, but was too juvenile to fit into the high quality portrait of a narrative that had already been painted. Nevertheless, I wink at the apparently minute discrepancy in an otherwise wonderful love story between a flamboyant personal shopper and a handsome father.

This movie is a knockoff of the enchanting "A Gift Wrapped Christmas". I enjoyed the original so much, I thought I would give this one a try. Boy, was I disappointed. There was zero chemistry between the leads. The script was largely uninspired. It was like the director took the story boards from the original and turned out a two-dimensional talk fest that echoes the movie on which it is based solely by its plot elements. There were times I could hear the cue cards in the actors' delivery. In particular, the lead actress turns in a performance so wooden, that I wondered if she had recently overdosed on Botox injections. Her constant smile never got to engaging and went right to creepy. If you have not seen "A Gift Wrapped Christmas", find a copy of that to watch rather than this garbage.

Needless to say that I had, of course, never heard about this 2023 Christmas movie from director Christie Will Wolf before now in 2024 as part of sitting through an ungodly amount of sappy Christmas movies all through December. And this being a Hallmark movie, and having a particularly girly and pink cover/poster, I must admit that expectations weren't grand.

But since it was a movie that I was unfamiliar with, of course I opted to give writers Christie Will Wolf, Barbara Kymlicka and Lisa Alford the benefit of the doubt. After all, every now and again, one of these sappy Christmas movies actually prove to be genuinely entertaining.

The writers put together a fair script and storyline, which actually proved entertaining. And the movie was just the right amount of sappy without going overboard.

I was familiar only with leading actress Meghan Ory and leading actor Christopher Russell. In fact, I had actually just sat through another Christmas movie with Christopher Russell in the leading role prior to watching "The Secret Gift of Christmas". The acting performances in this movie were fair. I have to say that Meghan Ory really stood out in this movie with her performance, and she carried the movie quite well.

"The Secret Gift of Christmas" is a movie that definitely will sit well with fans of the sappy Christmas movie genre.

My rating of director Christie Will Wolf's 2023 movie "The Secret Gift of Christmas" lands on a six out of ten stars.

This is virtually the same movie as A Gift Wrapped Christmas, and not just by the general story, practically scene by scene, it hits all the same beats. But A Gift Wrapped Christmas had genuine humor and a far more engaging lead in Meredith Hagner. This is essentially an interior remake, and you'd be far better served to set your dvr for the de facto original.

This is virtually the same movie as A Gift Wrapped Christmas, and not just by the general story, practically scene by scene, it hits all the same beats. But A Gift Wrapped Christmas had genuine humor and a far more engaging lead in Meredith Hagner. This is essentially an interior remake, and you'd be far better served to set your dvr for the de facto original.