Le Plus Beau Jour de l'année

Simple & cute - nothing wrong about that! And not just for Christmas time only. It's always good to see a happy, sweet movie.

Would have been a cute-ish Christmas movie, but Dina Meyer mumbles and swallows her words to the point of not being understood. I missed a lot of what she was saying. It's maddening. It's not an audio issue, because everyone else can be heard and understood. She also poses and is completely unnatural.

Story-wise, the column her character writes is idiocy. There's nothing in it that would interest the masses. "Spend time with your family at Christmas. Do simple things together." Really? Is that the best the writers could come up with?

And the whole world worried about coupling up their single friends is getting really old.

I'll end on a nice note. David Sutcliffe is good.

"Tom Lane" (David Sutcliffe) is a popular writer for a large newspaper called the San Francisco Sun and hopes to branch out with a television show sponsored that corporation. "Liz Madison" (Dina Meyer), on the other hand, works as an advice columnist for a much smaller newspaper known as the Marin County Voice. Although neither of these two people know each other directly, that soon changes when Liz is informed that the Marin County Voice has just been purchased by the San Francisco Sun and that drastic changes might soon be made. So, to boost circulation and prevent anyone from being laid off, Liz makes a suggestion to her boss "Mr. Billingsley" (Scott Swanson) that, since Christmas is fast approaching, she be given the chance to extol the virtues of the holiday season in an effort to increase circulation. To everyone's surprise, her new column is a tremendous success which soon catches the attention of Tom's editor "Vicki Shaw" (Paula Devicq) who informs him that this directly impacts Tom's chances of creating his own television show and that, in order to resolve the issue, he needs to write his own column contradicting everything Liz says--and as their war of words begins to heat up, so does their attraction for one another. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this was a rather lukewarm romantic comedy which benefited more from the performance of Dina Meyer than anything else as neither the romance or comedy was particularly impressive. That being said, while I don't consider this to be a bad Christmas film by any means, it was somewhat entertaining in its own right, and I have rated it accordingly.

There are many elements in this film that are quite unlikely and it wouldn't be strictly fair to call it a romance as the outcome happens without any dates or any of the typical romantic connections that we're used to. However, both of the leads are accessible and appealing. I especially like the male one. The female still scares me having seen her in Starship Troopers.

It's a bit of a silly story, a merger between a huge conglomerate and a local newspaper, but it ties around Christmas with some morals and tree decorating thrown in, whilst also providing balance for those who aren't huge Crimbo fans. There are times when it seems a bit discombobulated in its sequence, which drops points for me, but Mr lead's chest rug kept me going.

Not the best example of the genre, but not so bad that I would consider turning it off.

For a few years now it has been a tradition of mine to watch a Christmas special or movie I haven't seen before on the wee hours of Christmas morning. This year, I was skimming through my PVR and thought the summary of this little movie sounded cute, reminiscent of You've Got Mail. So, I gave it a try.

I am glad I did! It was pure fluff and rather a poor man's You've Got Mail, but after the stresses of shopping, it was good to sit down and watch something lighthearted. Not for someone with overtly high expectations and/or looking for a deep storyline, but worth a try. I really enjoyed the storyline and the chemistry between the actors. The lovely shots from British Columbia were a bonus.