Cold Feet at Christmas

This is an almost-ensemble holiday rom-com with one main heroine, her groom, her ex, and her sister rounding out the leads. Sara Mitich is luminous although her hair is almost frighteningly red in this role. There's gentle comedy and authentic emotion from the 4 leads as they grow through their individual arcs although Colt doesn't get much range as he's supposed to represent stable, unchanging love.

Mimi Kuzyk is a gem as the girls' grandmother. The bride's parents are transparently OTT - the kind that's entertaining on-screen but you'd have to murder IRL. The bit players are a nice collection of eccentrics and bewildered bystanders.

There's been some criticism that the lead actress isn't suited for the role but I think that's a deliberate choice by the director to play up the character's unsuitability for the city life and the marriage/family she is running away from (not a spoiler, as it's in the title). The character dresses more naturally and loses the artificial hairstyle once she's out of the city, and even moves differently as she becomes more true to her own desires.

(One caveat as a writer: if anyone dragged me out of an in-the-zone writing session after a period of blockage, I'd be flinging my coffee mug at them, not going meekly back to the kitchen to help with the baking or whatever.)

The plot omitted a few of the usual set-pieces like sleigh rides and ice-skating although they did fit in Christmas tree hunting, and still managed to become a nicely watchable story. I'll keep my eye out for the actresses playing both sisters, to see what they make of more demanding roles.

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.

Despite being a long way from perfect or being a complete hit, 'Cold Feet at Christmas' is thankfully closer to the former category. Certainly not a film to humbug on. As far as the 2019 Christmas output as part of my Christmas film completest sake goes, 'Cold Feet at Christmas' is in the high middle category (one would not think that looking at the rating here though), which was a relief after watching this practically straight after watching one of the worst of Lifetime's 2019 output (which, as has been said more than once in previous reviews, was very hit and miss) 'Always and Forever Christmas'.

'Cold Feet at Christmas' has a lot of great things. Best of all being Mimi Kuzyk, who brings so much life to her character and the film and was an absolute joy to watch. Candice Mausner and Joseph Cannata appeal as well. The chemistry between the actors on the whole was warm and connected well. Production values are slick and never drab or garish and the music is mostly quite pleasant.

There are a fair share of amusing moments that never felt overdone and an equal amount of never too over-sentimental serious ones. The writing is a long way from perfect, but compared to some Christmas films seen recently it's acceptable, here not heavy or not going overboard on the cheese. Enough of the story is very charming and heart-warming and even if the characters are not meaty they were characters to me that were worth caring for.

Did feel however that Sara Mitich didn't always seem comfortable, even for her fish out of water character, while Harmon Walsh is somewhat dull in a role that is not very well fleshed out.

Also there is no doubt, with it being the case with all Christmas films made by either Hallmark, Lifetime UpTV etc and being a long way from being a novel premise, that the story is very predictable and quite safe throughout, so there are major plot points and developments that can be seen from a long way away. The ending is easily foreseeable in particular.

Overall, quite decent. 7/10.

Thought I might not like the movie. Once you get past the awful wedding dress it's kinda charming. The actress who played Nana/Barbara was the best! Would be a totally different movie without her. Can't believe she is not included in the cast list. Should have kept the original title.

Uncredited in cast list. Hope this helps anyone that was also interested.

The actress with the gruesome red dye hair does not fit into a 'mountain girl' type, so they should have cast someone else for the roll, but all in all a decent christmas flick, very predictable

its go enough laughs in it to make it worth while, a guy can watch this and not have too many regrets. Probably for older viewers since there is no graphic sex and violence

The other 'sister' character is well scripted to show what real love is at several layers

worth the watch