Seconde chance pour une romance

This is a very predictable and often used plot for a Romantic movie. This movie has NOTHING to do with Christmas. On Netflix this is titled "Christmas Crush". Don't fall for it.

Rachel Boston is one of my favorite actresses. In watching this movie, and remembering a couple of others years back, I realized that much of my appreciation for Boston is based on her more recent romantic and Christmas movies like you find on Hallmark and 2018 on Lifetime. If this were the first movie I ever saw her in I might never have watched another.

My first impression of Georgia is Loser. (I was tempted to write Loser in all caps, but I know that's a no-no.) Absolutely everything she does and what happens to her in the first half or so of the movie is textbook Loser. And she just keeps on reinforcing that impression.

One reviewer says this movie is an insult to women and I agree. All the female characters except Beverly are extremely shallow, narcissistic and even mean. This movie could not be made in 2018 or 2019. Hopefully never again.

I suspect and hope that much of this movie is satire. That means that normal standards for acting and character behavior can't be applied. The evaluation has to shift to how funny it is and whether the satire hits its target. I didn't find the movie funny, but I've never been a fan of satire. Likewise, I feel unqualified to judge whether it hit it's target.

Hope springs at almost exactly the halfway point of the movie where Georgia and Ben are in the music room, but that is soon crushed by Georgia's stupidity reinforcing her Loser title and things are up and down until the end.

Toward the end, Georgia's mother and Georgia try to make it out like Georgia is on the high road, but her behavior to that point certainly doesn't support that. It really fell flat. The Georgia of the last part of the movie is not the same person as the first half or more and that is far more than her just having an epiphany.

There are several musical numbers including both song and dance. Boston (I'll assume that's her and not voice over) does a credible job, at least on one number, but O Holy Night was not a good choice for her ability. It wasn't bad, but I just don't think she did the song justice.

But not great. Easy Sunday afternoon watch. Seen worse. Acting average. Story average. Good bad girls. Only gave it a 4 cause it's just okay. Maybe pushes to a 5.

There is really nothing good about this movie besides the attractive cast.

The writing is juvenile, active is terrible, the plot is very shallow and predictable, even the soundtrack is just awful.

As a play or a parody this movie can work, although not extreme enough to be considered a parody.

Even though all of the characters are 30 years old, they behave as if they are still in high school, they also didn't even bother to make the cast look any different in the flashback scenes, which made the entire thing very confusing since their adult self behave the same as their your counterparts.

Georgia (Rachel Boston) attends her ten year high school reunion where she clashes with an old rival, falls back in love with her high school beau, and reunites with her best friend Ben (Jonathan Bennett), who has always been in love with her. I give made-for-TV movies a lot of leeway. I don't expect great things from them. Even more so if they are Christmas themed. This is a schmaltzy, cheesy, predictable movie. But that's not why I dislike it.

I dislike it for a few reasons. First, the characters are incredibly immature. None of them act like grown-ups. They all act like they're still stuck in high school. Considering "what have I done with my life since high school" is a recurring theme in the movie you would think it would be addressed at some point. Perhaps some characters coming to conclusions about how little they've grown up. But no, they're all just juvenile throughout the entire thing from beginning to end. Second reason I dislike it is you have wasted and unnecessary characters. The wasted would be Marilu Henner and Harry Hamlin. Henner's role as the mom is very small and she really adds nothing to the plot. Hamlin is there as comic relief. Both actors are given next to nothing good to do, although they both outshine their younger costars in the personality department by miles. The unnecessary would be characters like Ben's stalker or Georgia's dad, who appears in one scene just to be a jerk to his daughter and is never heard from again. I felt like that subplot needed some closure. The stalker seemed to be there just to let us know Ben actually does date and isn't the pathetic loser he seems to be, pining away ten years later for a girl who acts like he has no penis.

Which leads to the biggest problem with the movie: the romance. That's what we all watch something like this for right? Well the romance fell flat for me as Georgia spends the entire movie fawning over some douchebag jock while walking all over her best friend, who is obviously in love with her. Georgia's inevitable revelation about who she really loves comes in the most insincere and forced way possible. I was left with the feeling that Georgia was settling for Ben. The way Rachel Boston portrays Georgia seemingly in heat over the ex while acting completely unattracted to Ben left me cold. There is nothing that gives me any indication that she is as sexually attracted to her friend as she is to the douchebag jock. The writing is partly to blame but really the chemistry between the actors is nonexistent. Even at the very end there's still something stiff about them. This is very poorly handled material, even for TV. I mean this is cookie cutter assembly line stuff you know? If you mess this up, you really suck.