Une alliance pour Noël

After months of spending money in an extremely reckless manner, a spoiled, young woman living in New York City named "Angie Moore" (Liliana Tandon) is finally cut off from her allowance by her mother, "Margaret Moore" (Lorraine Bracco). Needless to say, Angie is devastated by this news, at least at first. Things change, however, when she learns that her deceased father had started a trust fund for her with the promise to pay an extremely large amount of money to her if she marries someone by Christmas. Not having anyone who will take her up on this, she then travels to her old hometown to look for a former high school crush named "Tyler Davis" (Charles Hittinger), who is not only single but is desperate to acquire enough money to start his own business. While there, she also meets her very best friend "Gabe Hudson" (Dean Geyer), who is also single--and happens to be a good friend of Tyler. And this causes problems for everyone involved. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this wasn't a bad movie necessarily, but it suffered from a rather predictable plot and mediocre acting all around. Not only that, but quite frankly, it also lacked the necessary humor and chemistry needed for a film of this sort as well, and for those reasons, I have rated this movie accordingly. Slightly below average.

Where to begin with this one...well, I did manage to get thru it, which I am proud of, as it was difficult to watch and stay engaged with at times. The storyline is not very good. I do understand it is a made-for-TV movie, so maybe I am being a bit too harsh. That said, the script was also rather weak. I have, over the years, noticed that UPtv and ION often have these original movies where there is this, what I call, 'corky' humor. It does not really work for me. The actors too often overact in such scenes; an example in this one is the performance of Kate McGarrigle as Paulette (Angie's friend). Maybe this is bad acting, or maybe it is what they and the director/writer are after, I do not know, but I find it difficult to watch for the most part. The acting overall in this movie was unimpressive. The lead (and writer of the film), Liliana Tandon (playing Angie), was difficult to watch at times. Do not get me wrong, she had a couple of decent scenes, but overall, her performance was mediocre at best. If it was not for the performance of Dean Geyer as Gabe, this movie would have been too difficult to finish. He had a pretty good performance. The supporting cast was not very impressive either. Another reviewer on here stated, 'Angie's former teacher, in a dialogue with her did not even make eye contact with her but was looking over her shoulder to read her lines.' I read this and immediately laughed because I was thinking something was off with her performance. Now I know why. Funny. They should have given more lines to Michael Gross (the dad), as he too had a good performance. There was a bit of Christmas cheer and a festive atmosphere, especially towards the (e.g., the children at school), which was nice. And the scenery and sets were nice, were festive. Overall, I am sorry to say, this edition to UPtv's 2020 Christmas season was a big disappointment.

Granted I watched it just to see the scenes of my Newburyport (and they were beautiful as the city is) but I really did not expect it to be as bad as it was. Terrible script, truly awful acting. How desperate for money would Lorraine Bracco have had to be to be involved in this? It made all the dreck on Hallmark and Lifetime look like great cinema.

The story is a bit unusual, but it is a marriage of convenience story. The lead female is a bit of a spoiled debutante, so mom cuts her off, abruptly. However, Angie discovers she can inherit a trust fund if she marries. There's a problem with the basic assumptions which create some inconsistency. The first scenes intentionally try to show how much of a spoiled spendthrift, Angie is. Then the entire rest of the movie, Angie is intelligent, generous and even at times diligent and industrious. Her attitude wavers back and forth from a little spoiled to a lot generous. Beyond that inconsistency, the story is awkward at times. Conversations. Situations. It's like everyone is trying too hard.

The eventual romantic outcome is obvious almost from the moment Angie returns home. These two have decent chemistry at times. Almost all of the acting is bad. Liliana Tandon is inconsistent - again, it seems like she is trying to hard to make up for lack of experience and natural talent. Paulette, the friend, is too over-the-top greedy. Lorraine Bracco almost slurs her words at times. Dean Geyer is decent, but there's too little of him.

I said the outcome is obvious, but there were a couple of fun bumps getting there.

There's a side story of Angie working with kids at school. There's some sweet moments, but it's too disconnected from the rest of the story. There is a very cute and funny scene with kids helping her practice for an interview.

I would have liked to see this story executed better including resolving some of the clumsiness in the plot. The basic idea has potential and Angie can be an appealing character. There's some definite pluses. There's obvious minuses. Let's put it this way - I could see myself watching this again next year.

Regarding rating and review distributions, something is hinky. Three 10 star reviews are the only one from that reviewer. And for ratings, the quantity of 10 stars outnumbers everything but the median rating. These together imply ballot box stuffing. My advice is ignore the short, nonspecific reviews and give this movie a chance.

I really think some of the other reviewers are being harsh. Christmas movies are supposed to be cheesy and not that believable. Kind of like Santa Claus (sorry, kids). This movie had all the elements of a good Christmas movie: holiday music and snow and making cookies and drinking cocoa. The point is to get into the holiday spirit and this movie certainly will do that for you (though reading the other reviews will not!)

To be sure, the plot isn't perfect. There are some inconsistencies and holes. The main character was a bit problematic, in that she was supposed to be spoiled and bratty at the beginning, then shift to someone more likable, but in fact, she never seemed all that horrible to begin with, which made it difficult to see a real change over the course of the movie. However, the reviews about the actress's looks are plain mean and unnecessary. She is very pretty and played the part well. The other actors also did a nice job and I especially liked Kate McGarrigle, who plays Angie's hilarious best friend. Give this movie a chance, it will make you laugh and give you a warm Christmas feeling, which is really all you can ask for in a Christmas movie.