Time for Her to Come Home for Christmas

The latest in a string of similarly titled Hallmark holiday romances produced by Blake Shelton, this one lacks the chemistry of those I have seem previously.

Shenae Grimes-Beech stars as Carly, a music teacher from Philadelphia who agrees to travel to the small town of Waterford Creek to help a church choir with its Christmas program. When she arrives, she finds that the choir is a vocal mess.

She also meets Matthew (Chris Carmack, who you may remember from "Nashville"), a returning soldier who hopes to join the local fire department. He has feelings for local girl Jenny (Lauren Jackson), but has not seen her for five years.

Carly convinces Matthew to join the choir. She connects with each choir member on an individual level. And she bonds with townspeople, in general.

In the end, this is a story about people without families, who may feel "lost", especially during holidays. It's a worthwhile subject, but this production lacks energy.

This movie is part of a series based on the song, "Time To Come Home For Christmas", Blake Shelton is the song's cowriter and movie's Executive Producer. This is the story of a woman, Carly, a Music Teacher, (Shenae Grimes-Beech) facing her first Christmas without her mother so to avoid loneliness, she takes a job as a temporary Church Choir Director in a small quaint town. Matthew (Chris Carmack), has returned to his home town, after serving in the Army, and plans to take a job with the Fire Department. He is also interested in trying establish a romantic relationship with an old friend, Jenny, (Lauren Jackson). Carly, convinces Matthew to join the choir, and she has her work cut out for her with only two weeks to shape a motley crew into a real choir. There's also a mystery brewing surrounding Carly and her family history.

The fun part of the movie is Carly's upbeat personality and special connection she has with each person she encounters, and the way she brings the town's people together. (Shenae really shines in this role). However, there are mixed signals from Matthew, is he trying to win over Jenny or Carly??? Caramack brings a cordial and sympathetic role to the Matthew character, but there really isn't enough actual romance between Matthew and either woman, he comes across more like a good friend. A really awkward and odd moment in the movie is how Carly overreacts when the mystery is revealed, but then way too quickly she does an about-face and she's suddenly very calm and returns to normal as she easily accepts what transpired (Jekyll and Hyde character moment). The ending was also a bit lackluster because of the lack of romance between the leads. It started out to be an interesting movie, but just lost something along the way. It's not a bad movie, but could have been better.

I've seen all the installments of Time to Come Home for Christmas and they are all at least better than average.

I would compare this one to the Time for You ... with Allison Sweeney, but even so it's quite different. In all the installments the secret is unveiled slowly. In this one it isn't as obvious that Carly is here for a reunion but pretty quick you start to see little things that tell you something is up. I figured it out very quickly, almost from the first clue.

As in all of them, there is a romance around the central character. I can't say I thought the chemistry was great between Shenae Grimes-Beech and Chris Carmack. His Matt seemed to be above it all.

In some, if not all of them, Destiny seems to be big. They all feature more than a couple of interesting coincidences.

Are you tired of the song yet? I don't recommend a bingathon of this series. The song is catchy but it gets repeated a lot. Last year they seemed to rewrite the history of the song and they keep that version this year. In the original Heath Sawyer wrote it from scratch, not the Blue Notes. Somehow this song didn't seem to be something you would expect from a church choir, but then this church was more of a family or feel good church than any particular religion.

Note: I think I am submitting this before the broadcast premiere because it has been available on the streaming service for a couple weeks now.

I found this to be boring and kind of contrived. My spouse even fell asleep during it. There are some glaring plot holes here and you've seen this type of material many times in the Hallmark movies. The cast is likable and they work hard to give this story some oomph, but the script is just not that interesting. There is nothing special about the sets or the locales - it's all recycled stuff that you've seen before. Plus, as soon as the lead character says "My father left right after I was born" at the beginning of the movie, you can probably figure out how this was going to end. We did - and that was before my spouse fell asleep !

Overall, OK with an interesting plot line. They attempt to honor the US Military (Army) but unfortunately in the opening scenes the Army Major has glaring uniform violations which are indicative of a poor research having been done by the "costume designer" and are, at the least, disrespectful to members of the Army. Specifically, the American Flag patch worn on the major's uniform is not the correct one and the unit patch, 10th Mountain Division, is also improperly worn as it is rotated 90 degrees and not worn with the sword points up. If you are going to portray military members in uniform, at least get the uniforms correct or you just embarrass your production and the actor(s).

Realize these discrepancies may be insignificant to most but, to those who have served it is obvious and disrespectful.

Get an advisor!