Holiday Crashers

This was a disappointment. I really like the lead actors, but the story....lie after lie after lie. These women aren't teenagers! They are full grown and still playing games like children! How could anyone take them seriously? Not to mention beginning relationships with a lie? Never a good beginning to a lasting, healthy relationship no matter what the romantic comedies try to tell us. And because of the deception and childishness of the characters, they are not as endearing as they could have been. I just didn't enjoy this story. The sets were gorgeous; all the actors beautiful....the story was just lame and dumb and some parts downright silly.

7.5 stars.

Just barely at the threshold of rounding up to 8 stars, this one sits at the bottom of my re-watchable list. I only re-watch 8 star movies, no time for any below the line, because it would open the floodgates for me and I'd never get out.

So what do I like about this film? Obviously something many other people didn't agree upon. I really love Fonseca, from my days of watching 'NIkita', she will always be on my list of favorite actresses of all time, spanning across genres, never disappointing me, just always there to entertain.

She's cute, not absolutely drop dead gorgeous, but just the perfect female in my opinion. She is down-to-earth with a very fashionable and super-pretty sort of mystique, just not your usual snooty model type, and I love that about her.

The other actress is new to me, and I think she's got potential. I hope to see her in a leading role soon. The male leads are both great.

So, what's the downside of this film? It's all about some awkward and tense moments, maybe a bit too worldly for some, not as innocent as the usual, but not really dirty or anything either. Maybe the script was a bit mundane, I don't know, but I was probably in a good mood is all. So if I ever watch this again, it won't be for the rating, but for Fonseca, I might say to myself in 5-10 years, "hey, it's Fonseca, let's watch this again, got nothing else to do."

Another dumb script ruined a Hallmark movie. Is it an impossible task to find a decent script? There should be plenty of writers between the US and Canada still recovering from the writers strike. Seems like the place to start are Hallmark movies that were popular and got favorable reviews, find those writers. Hallmark had a reputation for having very high quality rom-coms, but they're not what they used to be.

A lot of the cast are regulars, Canadian actors and actresses who are in a lot of Canadian rom-coms, they are filmed in Canada but set in the US. Good to see Chris McNally. I assume this was filmed in the greater Vancouver area and the locations are beautiful.

Two best friends from childhood start crashing holiday parties with stolen invitations from their 2-bit print job, in the process they continually make up personas...including the most ridiculous jobs. One of the two is just a drifter and the other is a law school graduate who had a panic attack when she tried to take the bar exam. Eventually the two get caught up in their lies when Toni, who is believed to be an Ivy League lawyer, gets roped into consulting on a job for Justin to cover for a former law graduate when she goes into labor.

Lots of coincidences in this film...like that Toni and Justin meet at several parties, like Justin's employee being one of Toni's classmates, like Bri meeting and hitting it off with a rich billionaire, like To i's dad being involved in a court case with the same car company that Justin is thinking of acquiring. I think their were a few too many coincidences, but it did make for an entertaining story. The one big downside was the glorification of lying. It was like watching bad people do bad things, which was just sad.

I really like Chris McNally, who played Justin and this performance was no exception (although...I am not sure I liked the long-ish hair). Overall it's an entertaining holiday hallmark film, but I wish it had more of a cautionary tale about lying, this seems more to be a road map of how to lie your way to success and romance.

Two friends decide to spend the Christmas season crashing other people's corporate Christmas parties, and making up identities.

On the other side of the story, the CEO of an investment company also attends some of the same parties, and the issue of the identity lies starts to crash into each other.

When the female main character hears about the CEO buying an auto firm which may face a class action suit headed by her father, she has to warn the CEO about what he might be getting into.

He winds up hiring her to consult on his legal issue, but doesn't know she ditched the bar exam and isn't a lawyer.

This idea had a LOT of potential, but the writers never closed the deal. They didn't really do any kind of a job building a relationship between the romantic leads, and they lost any element of real comedy regarding the identity lies. Just having the FMC uncomfortable all the time doesn't get there.

As I said, it's watchable, but my wife and I won't rewatch this.