Love at the Christmas Contest

One of my favorites in this type of genre. The writing and story is thoughtful and clever about a drama based around a Christmas tree decorating contest for the town. I wish my town had something like that as it is such a cool idea. A perfect family and love story for the holidays. The acting from the leads was great and the directing and production all first rate. Really impressed with this flick overall and I highly recommend! The colors really pop on the screen, and just beautiful sets and backdrops of Christmas decor and cozy homes. I found the story to be very touching on how new beginnings can occur despite going through great losses of losing loved ones, especially your mother as what is the case in the story. I have seen other Mar Vista movies, and ones written by John Burd and I was very impressed. This is the first film I have seen that he directed as well and I look forward to seeing more from him like this! It's nice to see Hollywood put out good-natured films again like this.

Watchable and family-friendly, but boring.

Except for the funny friend, and all the strange scenes that were off and made us laugh.

Who would try to wrap a present like that??!! You would have to see that scene to believe it. 😂

There was no town shown, only indoor scenes and front of the house scenes.

If you look closely at the picture of the nursery in one scene, there are skyscrapers behind it.

That pot of stew was massive and would have fed a dozen people!😂

After watching 100 of these stories, it's still annoying when the misunderstanding you know is coming actually does. No one says anything. No one communicates. It just has to be like that. Sigh.

The acting was okay, the male lead is a good-looking guy.

There is a different feeling to GAC movies than the new Hallmark ones. So it's tame.

I laughed when I noticed that there's no drinking wine at dinner, because we watched A Magical Christmas Village last week and there were at least 4 or 5 episodes where everyone had their glasses - Hallmark was trying subliminal messages to get us to buy their wine. So that's funny.

The kisses are different. A very friendly quick pucker up and peck. 😂 Done.

We had fun with this one, and all the little things mentioned were entertaining. We laughed a lot.

I give it a 5 out of 10 for the get upset/non-communication trope.

Put your drinking hats on. My wife and came up with a game last year after watching this Gem of a movie. Every time David (Ross Jirgl) looks down to the ground we have to take a shot. Needless to say I'm writing this from the Emergency Room, we couldnt finish watching the movie. Alcohol poisoning is not fun but i this will not deter us from playing this game next year.

Just really wanted to know why Angie was wearing a wedding ring throughout the movie. Is there a backstory i missed? Did her husband die? My theory is that she's working on getting a side piece and David won that spot.

Anyways, it's a generic Hallmark type movie. Clearly its a A. I created script. It doesn't offer anything different from any other low budget Hallmark Christmas Movie. The upside is you might not survive the game.

The locations were ok, but not many of them. I assume this was a small budget movie and they couldn't afford a better known lead actress and actor. The pair have no chemistry and that makes this production look like an amateur stage play, directed by someone with no directing experience. The best actors were the supporting ones, stand outs Triana Browne and Colleen Elizabeth Miller.

The script - plot and dialog are bad, snooze material starting with the tree decorating contest which was boring. If the script and direction were better it could have helped this movie and the actors. I wasn't looking for an award winning production, just something that doesn't look like a B/C level movie.

GAC Family is committed to family friendly entertainment. Often, they are doing this, in my opinion, at the expense of the story. For example, so many of the movies they have premiered lack any real villain, large or small to create tension. This movie is an example of what I am saying.

For starters, the story looks on paper like a grab-bag of many of the usual Christmas formulas. Angie lost her mother last year and everything this year is to honor her, especially her goal to win the tree decorating contest. Meanwhile, David is in town only for a short while and has to get back to Florida for his job. David has an absolutely adorable 10 year old girl, Gabby. There is the usual meddling bff. The word play around "it's a date" was way overused. There are snowmen and tree decorating.

Beyond all that, the story is very simple with no real highs or lows. One might call it a twist when Angie does something special almost at the end, but then that was closely tied to a problem that has been running through most of the movie which all the viewers knew would somehow be solved. And as I alluded to, there is almost no tension. The conflict gets blown up around another thing even the characters knew through the whole movie.

So what about Abby and David's relationship which I often say is what I really watch for? Yawn! Any chemistry between Samantha Cope and Ross Jirgl was extremely quiet at best. I think much of the responsibility for that is with Jirgl because he played David so laid back and reserved. I liked Cope's Angie, but she isn't in a class with some of the more perky actresses. There was definite chemistry between Cope and Eliza Donaghy's Gabby.

The background music was often distracting. Not because it was loud, but because it was noticeable. I have found that to be the case in other GACF movies. In this case, it might have been because that background was Christmas Carols in such a way that the melody stood out and competed with the dialogue.

This movie will be enjoyable in that there is no reason to expect things that aren't for the whole family. The story, the acting, and the dialogue are all acceptable, just not sparkling.