Christmas on the Menu

This movie uses the common trope of a B&B hosting reviewers which will affect their business. Throw in a little of the evil editor who changes the original reviews and add that it's not just the B&B but the owner's daughter's desserts that are getting reviewed. The conflict was created in a slightly unusual way but the surprise was dampened a little bit because you could see it coming from several scenes earlier. There are a lot of technical details about cooking sprinkled through the movie. There aren't that many of the traditional Christmas activities that are so formulaic in other Christmas movies.

I thought most of the actors were consciously "delivering" their lines as opposed to dialogue happening naturally and the dialogue wasn't that great. Kim Shaw overdid Josie's early anger for Tanner. Just watching the story and not inferring from external clues, for a while it was a tossup which guy, Tanner or Nolan, would get the girl. Both were good choices with no apparent flaws. But Jesse Kove had no chemistry with Shaw. Clayton James had some chemistry with Shaw but it wasn't sparkling. So much screen time revolved around the cooking that it diluted James and Shaw's chances to sell the romance.

Shanica Knowles does a song performance with some sultry moves. I wasn't impressed with her voice, but that's just me.

This is a watchable movie despite slightly below average acting . The story has some common elements with a couple of things out of the ordinary for Christmas movies.

Maybe it's just me...or maybe I missed a scene, but it took me over a hour to figure out Josie and Nolan previously dated. I didn't know who this dude was for most of the movie.

Kim Shaw, Cynthia Gibb and Clayton James do a good job with what they were given. The rest of the cast did a good job as well, but do to the writing (or lack of), they just seemed to drift through the story. There are no interesting subplots, and the story is very surfaced and one dimensional, so some characters just seemed to have no reason for being there and it showed. The characters lack of purpose leads to a lot of empty, pretentious dialogue which leaves you searching for the fast forward button.

Well done. I like when a Christmas movie doesn't feel like it was made as a school project. Some I seen habe been so awful but most are at least quality for the most part. As always, predictable but that's why we watch these. The cute little things and Christmas.

Overall, it is a decent Christmas movie with some good acting, I thought. The story centers around Josie (played by Kim Shaw), a chef who heads home for Christmas to help her mother (played by Cynthia Gibb) launch her new bed and breakfast by developing a (holiday) menu. To her surprise, Tanner (our other protagonist in this story played by Clayton James), who is a well-known food critic and has a past with Josie's food, has also come to her mother's B&B to check out the new menu. The friction between the two slowly turns to romance as they increasingly spend more time together (e.g., discussing food and their past) at this charming little bed and breakfast. As other reviewers here have pointed out, the story is quite ordinary and predictable. To be fair so is much of the Christmas (romance) genre. That said, I did find myself pulled in by the film; it engaged me. The dialogue between Josie and Clayton was warm and heartfelt and so too were some of the other interactions in the film, for example, between Nolan (played by Jesse Kove) and Josie (and Josie and her mother). The appeal of the film for me was the acting. I thought Shaw had a very strong, convincing performance. James too had a solid performance. He had some nice dialogue with Shaw in this one. I thought the chemistry between the two was pretty good (unlike some of the other reviewers here). Was it brilliant? No. But I did think it was believable on screen. The supporting cast in this one, I thought, was great. Gibb had a good performance. It was also nice to see Michael Steger (as Stu, the photographer) on screen again (I watched him in 90210 and have not seen him since). The last 10 minutes or so were quite festive too with a bit of a musical performance by Shanica Knowles (as Iris); it is a shame she did not sing more in the film. All in all, although the story was unexceptional, the movie was engaging due to the quality of acting. I give it a 6.5 out of 10 stars. Well worth a watch if you are a fan of the Christmas romance genre.