Guess Who's Coming to Christmas

I don't really follow Drew L but I was so impressed by his acting and everyone else in this film. It's prob the best acting I've seen in this genre. Cute little movie to have around.

It's a nice story of a young man who's been lost in the world and now finds his way. And the father was a good character who managed to surprise me.

With a title like 'Guess Who's Coming to Christmas' I thought this would be a riff on the classic 'Guess who's coming to dinner.' How wrong was I.

Instead it is one of these faith based films for the family with one horrible subtext which urinates all over the message from the Sidney Poitier/Katharine Hepburn/Spencer Tracy classic.

Wild rock star Dax (Drew Lachey) is found by drunk in his car by the press. With a potential public relations disaster looming his manager sends him off in Cedar Grove, a small Midwestern town where he will spend a week with Reverend Harding and his family and perform in a local Christmas concert. In short he is to fulfil a child's 'Dear Santa' Christmas wish and repair his image.

However Reverend Harding has strict rules such as no drinking and a curfew. Dax becomes charmed by his family and friendly with his daughter who was a fan of Dax's music. There are hiccups along the way Dax breaks into the Reverend's liquor cabinet and drops down drunk at church. Still Dax comes to appreciate the kindness of the family and gets into the festive spirit and cleans up his act.

Dax decides to dump his Asian girlfriend because she cannot keep him out of trouble, probably not Christian and foreign and in a Christian based film that is certainly not on.

The movie was not perfect and the Christmas theme was a bit forced but I would not mind watching it again. Really liked the 2 leads MacKenzie Porter and Drew Lachey. The story was appealing in that a Star singer who has lost his way is suddenly staying with a minister and his family (his daughter has a poster of the singer in her room since age 15- now she is 26). Loved the mom taking photos of her daughter when waking her up in the morning. One scene between the 2 leads- so happy it brought tears. We only have one song in the movie (an original at the end) which was not a Christmas song. More music would have helped. They really could have dropped the singer's girl friend from New York visiting. The filming lacked those great closeups and some of the dialogue was a bit hard to understand. This was an UP movie so the budget was probably low. It was a good movie. Could have been great.

Celebrity singer needs to repair his rep. You can probably figure out the rest.

The story is set mostly in the house of a Christian pastor who has a lot of rules and a few platitudes, but I didn't think the movie was overly preachy.

There's a bit of singing here and there by the two leads, but it's not really a musical movie.