A Miracle on Christmas Lake

It wasn't great but something different in a Christmas movie market saturated with cookie cutter plots.

I never expect a lot from the Christmas movie industry. I don't mind seeing one that deals with pain and grief and doesn't have someone falling in love after their spouse died 10 months ago. My biggest complaint was Santa's eyebrows and the mall Santa would never cut it in real life. Lol. I watch a lot of Christmas movies and don't make it past 20 minutes on many of them but I finished this one. I do strongly agree with some reviewers that this movie had the potential to be much better. Only watch this If you are a Christmas movie fan or a hockey fan with daddy issues.

I really wanted to like this movie. The setting's gorgeous and the plot of teen loss and loneliness redeemed at Christmas through the healing power of friendly spirits should have been great.

Sadly, the execution of this great idea was lacking.

The actors were mostly okay, but the script gave them little to work with. There were some touching moments but they were few.

Character motivations got lost in the scrap paper bin or on the cutting room floor until far too late in the film for viewers to care much. Plot and subplots were all crammed in there together. The spiritual significance of the night pond never quite made itself clear, and the inspirational speech that was clearly supposed to redeem that main plank of the plot was frankly a mess, both in writing and in delivery. There was absolutely no reason for the townsfolk to clap except that they were told to. Or maybe because that was the last time they had to show up for filming.

Like I said at the start, I really wanted to like this film. But I couldn't.

If you are feeling depressed, then don't watch this film, you will be more depressed......

Will Bobby miraculously learn to love Christmas? Will he save the lake? Will he leave town? Will his family have to move?

If you're looking for an inspiring movie with a positive message, this may not be it. If you're looking for a family movie, this isn't that either. Plenty of curse words have been bleeped out in the version I saw--though Sarah looks foolish criticizing Bobby's for cursing around his sister after some tamer words are substituted. And Roxy imitates him and also gets yelled at.

This movie eventually gets where it is going but takes a long route to get there. And then runs off the road into a ditch.

Aside from one of Bobby's mysterious visits which suggest something about life after death which is not consistent with the Christian faith, this movie has little in the way of spiritual messages. The change in tone toward the end is at least inspiring but not the "miracle" some movies like this have. At least it's not predictable.

The biggest positive quality of the movie, and maybe the one reason to watch, is Siobhan Williams as Karen, who is such a great character and so nice. She sees something in Bobby that apparently we don't, because there's not much to like about Bobby. Although we are supposed to hope he gets what he wants.

Other that Williams and Will Sasso as a terrible Santa, the acting here is mostly on the level of people sitting around a table reading the script for the first time. Even the mysterious characters don't really impress. Jeremy is a particularly unlikable character until the end.

If you enjoy this movie, that's the true miracle.

Poorly acted, terrible script, & unnecessarily, excruciatingly looong! The main character was so unlikable, I couldn't even find any sympathy for him. None of the characters had any redeeming qualities. I made the mistake of watching the entire thing, hoping for it to get better, but after nearly THREE HOURS, it never did, & mercifully ended...FINALLY!