A Christmas to Savour

I wish I had read these reviews before I watched this movie. I wasted 2 hours of my life that I can't get back. (And now I have to waste more of my time to come up with 600 characters to post)!!!

The female lead is SO bad and thinks she's right about everything. She is not a pleasant character, has an arrogance about her and thinks she's better than everyone else. And her friend/business partner is just as bad, in other ways - like being bossy and pushy.

The male lead wasn't much better. He too was a know-it-all, but he was also boring. No charm there.

The other characters were just there in the background - not much talking or acting.

The film has little going for it. A chef in the run up to Christmas goes on a week long cookery course with the aim to develop a Christmas menu! Yes because that's what restaurants do so close to Christmas when they already have decorations up.

Mediocre main actors, awfully fake/bad supporting actors. The movie has painfully long and shallow conversations continuously, from one conversation we are jumping into another one in the 90% of the movie. The only positive side is that sometimes there are short clips of a nice winter scenery between them. Anyway these conversations are so boring that you would want to hit your head to the wall instead of watching the movie. Or write an honest review to imdb during the movie like what I'm doing right now and eagerly wait for the end credits. I've seen some bad Christmas themed movies but this is by far the most boring and annoying one that I've ever seen.

Scarlett is a goddess among chefs, according to her own mind. She is right about everything. Only the most sophisticated dishes will do. And that is her attitude through more than half the movie despite the fact her business is struggling, her partner is trying to push her to new and simpler for the holidays, and she goes on a cooking retreat to gain inspiration.

The instructor of the retreat is a rival from her past, James, and she is resistant to everything he wants to pass on. It comes to a head about halfway and her creation gets no praise from the rest of the class, but she seems unphased. So, James' solution is to tell the entire class to take a holiday as a break from class. Finally, Scarlett and James spend some quality time. Even then, Britt Irvin and Zach Roerig have no chemistry. And I wasn't impressed with the acting of either of them. Usually at this point there is a budding romance that gets threatened by a conflict. The conflict does come and is the result of Scarlett's arrogance but there is no evidence of an actual romance despite the fact that the story continues as if there is one.

The story might have been mediocre, but the portrayals of the characters by the lead actors left it far worse than even that.

Why do Lifetime and Hallmark think we want to see characters like Scarlett? Arrogant, snobby, with a failing business, but we're supposed to root for the person who can't grasp that others are affected by her stubbornness and refusal to change? Enough. Not only is she a bland, off-putting character, but the story is weak. Even with Christmas movies being predictable 99% of the time, if a lead wasn't so ugh, we could let the plot slide. She's utterly awful.

Next, is the romance in the room with us? For some reason, Lifetime cannot do romance and they may have one believable Christmas romance a year. Usually those movies will involve actresses you've heard of like Tia Mowry-Hardrict, Tatyana Ali, and Jana Kramer. The budding romance between Scarlett and James (?) is not there at all. Her attitude is so poor, why would he be interested in her? Why are these personalities never a turn off? I also don't like how she treats her business parter and presumed best friend. As if her opinion on the restaurant doesn't matter. Honestly, this might have been better as A Christmas Carol story or something similar where she actually has to experience and reflect on the consequences of her actions.

I know it's a 3 yr old movie but I hadn't seen it before today. It'll be the first and last time.