My Christmas film viewings over-time have been a very mixed bag. With some surprisingly good hits, where regardless of how predictable they are succeed in being full of charm, warmth and heart so succeeding in being light-hearted and undemanding fun. But also some quite big misses, where the characters are not likeable, everything is forced and shallow with implausibility too in some of the worst cases, the acting and writing being weak and basically with just nothing to them.
Have seen worse Christmas films, but 'Baby in a Manger' really isn't good. Not irredeemably awful, but there are a lot of things wrong with it and when anything is bad goodness isn't it bad. It didn't entertain me. It didn't charm me. It didn't warm my heart. And it didn't move me. Actually found myself annoyed throughout, one of only two feelings felt throughout (the other being boredom), and it takes a lot for me to feel those when watching a film or anything for that matter. Especially now.
It has a few plus points. Monica Rodriguez Knox is appealing and a natural presence. The baby is adorable.
Did think it looked decent in parts in namely the scenery.
However, this is all outweighed by the bad things. Absolutely agree with those panning Michael Morrone, who is on stiff autopilot throughout with yawn-worthy line delivery. One of the worst male lead performances seen in recent memory. Didn't detect any chemistry between him and Knox, they look awkward together and their constant bickering got repetitive and overdone. The supporting cast are forgettable at best and at worst annoying in a film full of one-dimensional caricatures passing off as characters. The filming too often is drab and the editing is very carelessly slapped together.
While the music is not too awful on its own, how it's used is. Overused and often out of place, tending to intrude too. The dialogue has more cheese than the cheesiest of cheeseburgers and even fruit sherberts don't have this amount of cloying sugar. The direction is routine at best. The story is dull and unrealistically contrived as well as excessively predictable, no charm, heart or joy at all.
Concluding, not good at all and at its worst very bad. 3/10.
