Un Noël à croquer

Ya'll. It's bad. And yet, my roommate and I watch it every. Single. Year. We love it.

The strange floating people in the beginning at what seemed like a Top Chef competition but definitely wasn't? Perfection.

Unappetizing food plated poorly by the winner of the competition? Yes.

Deceased moms, non-existent steaks, non existent STAKES, and what seems like a deliberate PR campaign to make sure we the audience are excited by the idea of dating a city planner? I'll take it.

Also, bonus for a very ethnically ambiguous family lead by Vivica A. Fox. I don't know who is related to who, no adoption, foster or "chosen family" storyline to follow. It's perfect.

You ask, every year we watch this? The answer is YES.

There is truly nothing better than the cinematic universe of Christmas MOW's made in Canada, and this one definitely takes the cake.

One of the things that sprang to mind halfway through this film was: they must have wanted a 'big' name attached to this movie (Vivica A. Fox) but it was an absolutely supervacaneous role. In my opinion, this whole film was actually dispensable. There's nothing really right about it, I don't feel. The acting is so so. The story is quite lame and could've pretty much been set at any time of the year so it's not so much a Christmas movie (apart from the fact that they have Christmas trees in it). There's no family feel (a hugely important part when it comes to Christmas flix for me), the girl always wants to get away from her mom (that's why Fox's role is so redundant) to get to work... And honestly, I don't quite get the title either. But that may be me...

I'm a HUGE fan of these Christmas movies. They're cheesy yet lovely and always have a happy ending. Really for me they're a form of escapism. But this one is so disjointed and awkward. The story line is off and nothing makes much sense and the blatant miscommunication of the two main characters becomes quickly annoying. I won't even start on the best friend. I really wanted to like it more but, simply put, I just didn't. I was disappointed.

Okay, I've just read most of the other reviews of this movie and I completely agree with a couple of them who said the first few minutes were so bad they just turned it off. I felt that way too at about the 15 minute mark, but I just left it on because I was just chillin' at home with nothing else in particular to do. Those two ditzy chicks were awful. I was sorry to see the bad plastic surgery on Jess Walton-she used to be so attractive. And I just couldn't buy Vivica Fox as the Mom. I was ready to hate the character of Shane, but before long he had won me over. And Kaitlyn Leeb as Clara was really quite engaging. I won't give away the ending, but trust me that it really does make enduring the first half of the movie worth the pain it takes to watch it. I give it 6 stars: 1 for the beginning, 4 for the plot development later in the movie, and 10 for the finale, making an average (in my mind) of 6.

I didn't believe in the acting and the story. The movie did not generate any emotion from me. It feels like an amateur movie.