All About Christmas Eve

As many people have mentioned this movie is parallel to the movie Sliding Doors especially in the beginning where Fired Eve (FE) catches her boyfriend in her own bed with another girl. This movie just isn't done as well as the original, although it does have a totally different twist on the ending. In that I like this one better.

Hillary Duff is OK, but not great. Likewise Chris Carmack. They do connect. Gib Gerard is terrible and so is his second girlfriend. Diana DeGarmo does a powerful rendition of O Holy Night.

The story has potential even to the extent that it is different from the original. LA Eve's story progresses pretty well except for Matt the original boyfriend . Who calls the girlfriend he is cheating on while he is right next to the one he is cheating with? And several times.

But I also had a problem with FE's story. For one thing, she doesn't start picking herself up until 3/4 of the movie is gone. Until then she does a lot of whining and not much else. It seems like a lot of wasted screen time that could have been put to better use.

Connie Sellecca is the boss we love to hate.

BTW there are at least two incidents of blatant sexual harassment that appear to be accepted without complaint.

While binging on Christmas movies I came across this Sliding Doors holiday remake. The story moves along and has a good cast.

The movie was ok, but why oh why the middle school art? I couldn't stop laughing at her "Art" at the gallery.

It's not a movie you can have on in the background. You have to pay attention to movie because of the two story lines. Both story lines are bland so it's not worth it.

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, 'All About Christmas Eve' is thankfully closer to the former category. Certainly not a film to humbug on. As far as the 2012 Christmas output as part of my Christmas film completest sake goes, 'All About Christmas Eve' is in the high middle category (one would not think that looking at the rating here though) and does decently with one of the more intriguing premises of a Christmas twist ('Sliding Doors' with a festive twist), even if even more could have been done with it.

It does try to do a little too much, a danger with parallel structure stories, with too much crammed in in terms of events and characters and the switches from story to the other are not always seamless. Parts weren't explored all that well, with the identity of the person calling the girlfriend agreed being too vague.

At times the dialogue went too far on the cheese factor and was vulgar. Gib Gerard is very wooden as well.

Wooden is not something that Haylie Duff can be described as, she plays her role with a good deal of verve and charm. Connie Sellecca has fun as the boss character. Chris Carmack isn't as interesting but he seems at ease and engages with the material. The chemistry doesn't seem forced. The direction is not always in control of the story but there is enough skill on display. Neither the script or story are perfect in any shape or form, with the script particularly being easy to criticise, but the story does intrigue and provoke thought and doesn't come over as dull.

It is very professionally filmed and the locations are simply beautiful. A lot of Hallmark's Christmas films suffer from being over-scored, meaning being too constantly used and too loud. That isn't so big a problem here generally. While the characters are not meaty or original, none of them annoyed me and nor did they bore me. The leads were easier to connect to than expected. They also had personality traits that appealed and any negative traits were not exaggerated, which can be a common problem with female lead characters particularly in Hallmark's Christmas output.

Overall, decent if unexceptional and not always focused. 6/10.

The two previous reviewers have already pointed out features I would have mentioned:

• The "Sliding Doors" plot parallel

• Diana DeGarmo appearing as herself, singing "Cantique de Noël" in English (i.e., "O Holy Night")

In addition, I would note that this is Chris Carmack's second appearance this season as the leading man in a Christmas movie, along with "A Christmas Wedding Date". So far, this is the more highly-rated of the two (and rightfully so, in my opinion). Previously, I'd seen him only as "the other guy," or in some other minor role.

Finally, here are some things you might not have seen if this had been a Hallmark movie:

• The cheating boyfriend in bed with another woman

• Two drag queen barflies (also mentioned previously)

• Haylie Duff's cleavage (I don't remember that from 7th Heaven!)

In short, here's a different bit of fun from the "typical" Christmas tale.

Note: Carmack's character's name is spelled Aidan in the IMDb credits, but that came up with a spelling alert when I typed it, so in my summary, I used the "corrected" form, Aiden, since I never saw the spelling on the screen. Eve's full name, however, appears both spoken and in print in the film; her fist name is Evelyn, but unfortunately, I can't remember the surnames of either lead character.