A Sugar & Spice Holiday

It was so cute!! I loved the script and the cast has such great chemistry. What a fun take and I'll admit most Christmas movies are really formulaic and obvious but this one has such a sweet message and great spirit! I'd watch it again and I'll keep my eyes on the leads and keep my fingers crossed they do a sequel!! (Just watched about 2 prior movies with the same sort of storyline but this one was unique enough and I swear the casting was superior to any other)

A sugar and spice holiday was a sweet movie. It was well acted and had some nice moments. But the CGIs were horrible. Still, the movie is heartwarming and has a lot of sweets in it.

Jacky Lai the lead actress was great in this movie, as were most of the others, perhaps with exception of her parents.

The story had the obligatory snow ball fight, and a "save the local x by fundraising, someone saving the day, upsetting the boss, then the love, etc etc... Actually maybe it's not different after all, but it kinda felt like a story that slightly differs to the usual. Maybe it was good acting, maybe good leadership / directing / production... I don't know why, it just felt better than the usual movies.

I/we watch a lot of these Christmas romcoms and it's not often I will take my time to review one.

I really enjoyed 'A Sugar & Spice Holiday'. It is a sweet, warm, and engaging Christmas movie, one of Lifetime's better originals this 2020 season. It is also another first for Lifetime: a Christmas movie with (primarily) an Asian American leading cast. The movie centers around Suzy Yung (played by Jacky Lai), a rising star at an architect firm, who returns to her hometown in Maine for Christmas. However, she has to take her work with her if she wants that big promotion. While at home, she is persuaded to enter the local gingerbread bake-off with an old high school classmate named Billy Martin (played by Tony Giroux), thus stepping into her late, and beloved grandmother's shoes; baking was part and parcel of her childhood growing up with Nema (aka her grandmother, played by Cindy Piper). The story is lovely to watch on screen. The script is cute and fun. There was a nice balance of humor, romance, and family warmth, which made for a pleasing viewing experience. As another reviewer here pointed out, the writer did a good job developing the characters; there were, for example, some quirky individuals at the bakeoff. I also enjoyed the voice-overs and narrations by Suzy every time a new character was introduced in the movie, which included comparisons to and graphics of baked goods; I have added these sayings in the quote section of IMDB, they are quite nice to read. What makes all this work on screen, of course, is the acting. It was brilliant. Lai had a very good performance, quite convincing, I felt. Giroux too was great. He had a fun and confident - with a touch of warmth - vibe to his portrayal of Billy. The chemistry between the two was impressive/convincing (e.g., the scene in the kitchen, where Billy was showing Suzy his technique, was steamy). The supporting cast was also wonderful, some very good acting, I thought. I especially liked watching the performances in the bakeoff scenes (fun to watch). All in all, this is a delightful new edition to Lifetime's 2020 Christmas movie lineup. One of their best this season. Highly recommend.

A Sugar And Spice Christmas/Holiday (2020) -

"Teach someone to fish and they will stink, teach them to bake and they will always have sweet treats."

I really enjoyed this film. It was refreshing to have a story featuring an Asian family and some of the traditions of their heritage. They didn't go over the top with it and actually I appreciated that, because it can be too focussed on differences sometimes, but the nods and hints were just a nice change from the usual black or white options available.

And maybe it was because I was on a weird high/come down from forgetting to take my happy drugs, but it just seemed to have the right balance of silliness and seriousness.

Although he wouldn't be classed wholly as a leading man or deemed traditionally gorgeous, Tony Giroux, as Billy, definitely had a charm. As the film progressed, I thought that he was actually very cute and his character was really sweet with a lovely, fun personality.

The leading lady Jacky Lai, playing Suzy, was good too, but I had to wonder if she really NEEDED that promotion or not? They always say that in these films, but then they go back to the most luxurious apartments or spend a fortune flying back and forth between the city and their hometowns, so how poor are they that a promotion is all that can save them?

Suzy's Mother was an awesome character, but some of the supporting artists were a bit questionable, including and mostly those involved in the bake off.

But the Nan in this film was adorable, just like mine and God don't I miss her. We never made cookies together, but as someone that was in my life longer than most of the others, she left a gaping hole. The scenes that the Nan was in really pulled at my heartstrings.

What I really liked was the idea that Suzy might not get everything wrapped up in the end, so I was a little bit disappointed that they did what they did with it, but I would still say that this film was one of the best I've seen from the latest batch of the made for TV Christmas films.

7/10.