L'arbre à souhaits

What do you expect from the Hallmark Channel, originality? Is there any originality in a single Hallmark card? Probably not. So here is yet another cliché-filled, ultra cheesy Made-for-TV Christmas movie from them. But it's a Christmas movie, it needs to be able to tug at heart strings and be sappy. How do you accomplish that? With clichés and cheese. Fortunately this one works. What we have is a teacher looking after three kids and we get to see how they all come together as friends and better people at Christmas. It's definitely not the normal "awwww so sweet" chick flick romance blah blah blahbiddy blah. There is romance involved but it doesn't come together until the end and it's not the main focus of the story. This is actually some decent holiday goodness for a change with a feel good message. If maybe 1 out of every 20 made-for-TV Christmas movies is honestly truly worth seeing, this is one of those.

6.4 / 10 stars

--Zoooma, a Kat Pirate Screener

We enjoyed this film very much. Particularly liked Jason Gedrick! Would like to see more of him.

I was happy discovering this Halmark film. Maybe, because I am teacher , too, maybe because it is a joy to discover new idea for collaboration with students, maybe for Jason Gedrick new role , preserving memories about his work in different other films. It is a good Christmas film and this fact is the most significant thing to tell about it. The rest - pieces from Halmark universe.

I like Jason Gedric as an actor but starring in this made for TV film he plays a sombre teacher who lost his wife so he buries his emotions and focuses on three students who won't get to go home over the Christmas holidays. It's a cheap and sobby drama/romance with a supposedly "feel-good" ending which I didn't get and the story line has been done a hundred times before but the other versions must be better than this one because it was quite frankly lousy.

I know, I know, it's a somewhat Christmas themed story so I may end up with coal in my Christmas stocking for writing a negative review but I call them like I see them.

I rate it a low 3 out of 10 rating.

What to say about The Wishing Tree (not to be confused with the Showtime movie of the same name)? Well, it's not one of Hallmark's greatest Christmas films, but it was OK.

On the plus side, the plot was decent and the acting from the actors was pretty good. On the minus side, the human characterizations was not too good and needs more work.

I will admit, I did felt uncomfortable during many of the scenes in the film, even the scene where Teryl Rothery's character said she won't forgive the boy for what he did to the Wishing Tree.

Despite these problems, The Wishing Tree is still an OK Christmas film, though it's definitely a holiday film worth watching once.