Le Grand Bal du réveillon

In the movie's opening scene, our lead character Amy (Elisabeth Harnois) discovers her boyfriend's desire to have an open relationship and the fallout serves as the vehicle to launch her journey from Chicago to her brother's place in Vienna. She decides to get some ball tickets at a dance studio in Vienna. While there, a wealthy instructor Lukas (Christian Oliver) immediately wants her to be his replacement partner for a midnight ball dance competition without knowing how well she can dance. Romantic interests follow and the story follows the formula quite well to the end.

Including the unbelievability of the opening premise of this movie, there are some unsettling aspects to it. There are three men who have a romantic interest in Amy and all are quite aggressive in pursuing Amy and placing her in difficult scenarios to resist their advances. Amy would be drawn in by their attention then suddenly realizing what was happening become quite creeped-out by the situation. I'm not sure if the director intended these scenes to play this way, it was how Elisabeth Harnois interpreted her character's response to the advances or just the actors taking some artistic interpretation on the scenes. Most versions of these movies have a slow progression of "not interested" to "he's the one" by the last 5 minutes. Amy's character went back and forth in every scene and this pendulum made the movie feel quite uncomfortable to watch at times.

Overall, this movie is very much a hybrid between Hallmark's 2020 version of Christmas in Vienna and Christmas Waltz storylines. Not sure who stole whose idea on this one or if somebody at Hallmark hated this movie so much they decided they could do it better. Christmas Waltz features much higher dancing quality, set decorations and very strong chemistry between the lead actors. Hallmark's Christmas in Vienna version features a better and socially correct version of our subject movie's story. Either of these films would be recommended over this one.

The story line is pretty decent and I didn't expect the view of Vienna is that impressive

Every pros and cons of the movie have been mentioned. The Dance scenes are so amazing. Thanks for the camera team. Steady !

Badly written Badly acted The only good things its got for it is the classical music and that it is a christmas movie

Most christmas movies(Hallmark, I am looking at you) are corny, they do not have original stories(There are exceptions of course) but they have some charm, they add just a bit of whatever to make them just slightly different, and the acting makes them unique

This has nothing of what makes the Hallmark movies enjoyable(I actually confused this one with the Hallmark one, which is why I saw it)

The writing is abysmal, like if it was written by someone that does not speak english without any proofreading, there are a lot of little details(Like the uncle is his uncle but not hers? I mean, we could think "Step brothers" but it is implied they are not step) and... well, pretty much everything else, just nonsensical lines and actions.

The acting is like watching that 90's cartoon action league... they are stiff, without passion, without any real acting at all, delivering blandly on screen.

It is a trainwreck of an attempt that was really disappointing.

TBH 2 of those stars are due more to my nostalgia for the city's market & the giant ferris wheel than to any quality of the movie. Plus I'm a longtime devotee of the waltz, and nobody does that like the Viennese

The cute American girl, the rich & handsome Viennese boy, the cute meet on a Christmas-bedecked cobblestone street...the script pretty much writes itself.

Actually it's a different male character she meets on the (beautifully decorated, cobblestoned) street, and only after she's been the traditional gauche New-Worlder and the rich Old-Austrian boy has been rude to her. Of course there is also a snooty scheming other woman.

After that, the script takes some pleasant detours on the way to the inevitable happy ending, among them that some extras had a point to their presence that was not all 'spoil the budding romance'. They seem like real people going about their own lives, with only occasional lapses into propping up the pretty heroine.

It's rare in holiday fare to allow secondary characters anything of a plot but the brother who brought Our Heroine to Vienna had his own minor storyline that eventually meshed with our heroine's, and a few bit players got callback moments in the final scene as well. Nice extra touches in a fairly nice and definitely pretty movie.

Settle in with your hot chocolate and your best dancing slippers, and prepare to be swept off your feet.

The dancing, music, costumes and locations are amazing in this movie which is grander, slightly meaner and sexier than the cosy Hallmark style. I totally identify with the leading lady's situation, trying to have a fresh start and with new interests etc after a traumatic experience. It makes sense that she's not super skinny like the regular dancers who train all the time, and all the clothes look great on her - costume department did a lovely job in both the casual and formal wear.

I also enjoyed the subplot of her adopted or half-brother looking for his wider relatives, but I understand why some viewers think the script could have explained that set up more - is Amy adopted? I'd be quite happy to see a sequel continuing the family research on all sides.