Noël est au rendez-vous

This has a Hallmark type movie title where you expect the misadventures of a teenager trying to set her dad up, misfire and then succeed. But it is, in fact, a story about a father and daughter experiencing grief. The individual stories take a path that develop each character and explore their own response to the Mother/wife's death. The father and daughter story is poignant and not candy-coated. The father's loss is hard for the daughter to understand and Piven does a great job of not cheesing up his reactions. The character is sad, at a loss, and feeling alone. The daughter is equally complex, alienating a friend b/c she can't contain her emotions.

Some motifs could have been more effectively used. The father loves dancing, but it doesn't show up enough (or the loss of it) to make the ending meaningful. The memories of his wife don't include them.

The daughter being spurned by the boyfriend was sadly cliche as a way of finding out more about herself.

Still, i recommend it for their relationship, for the examination of grief and loss, and for the lovely settings and locations.

I must say, I really enjoyed this film. It had a lot of things going for it. The story and script were strong. I had a bit of an emotional roller-coaster with this one. The first 30 minutes or so were quite funny. I found myself laughing out loud several times (e.g., when the daughter was setting on the online dating profiles for her dad; the Aunt's Christmas party; the dates the unknowing father went on). The dialogue between the father (played by Jeremy Piven) and the daughter (played by Olivia-Mai Barrett) was witty and insightful into the father-daughter relationship, I thought. The character development of David and Jules was also pretty good for a Christmas film. The acting was great. Piven had a good performance, quite believable in his role as a father. Barrett was very good too. I have never seen her on-screen before; she impressed me with her performance here. The dialogue and relationship between the two worked on screen, well, it did for me, at least. The supporting cast performed well. The music was very good; some great music selection in this film. The scenery, props and sets were well done. You got to love York at Christmas. It is such a cozy and pretty city, a nice filming location. Overall, this Christmas film is a great. I highly recommend it.

There's huge potential in Jeremy Piven, anyone can see that after watching Entourage. The story and the directing was OK, the acting was excellent, but the atmosphere was totally ruined by the poor selection of soundtrack. The songs should have supported the acting but they simply didn't match the scenes and the feelings, at all.

I enjoyed watching this movie, it has an interesting story line and the acting is excellent. I wish the movie was longer, I think they could have added more scenes to add depth to story. This is the perfect movie to put you in a holiday mood and it is fun watch over again.

The movie itself is bang average. But Jeremy Piven is really good in it!