Tis the Season to Be Irish

I disagree with most posters here. Sean isn't that bad. Sure he was tough, he mostly wanted someone who wasn't planning on flipping the house. He tried to talk her out of buying the house. The utmost worst part of the movie was the timeline. I am SHOCKED no one mentioned this. This old delapitated rundown house with major problems (roof a huge mess) was miraculously renovated in a matter of weeks apparently all by herself with plenty of social time to boot. They could have least pretended it was several months. The ending was pushed through too quick as well. One of my least favorite movies yet.

One of the first things established in the story is that Rose is a veteran of many flips and quite successful. That takes a couple of minutes. She then proceeds to make decisions that are completely stupid besides being warned by more than one person not to. But in arrogance she doubles down on stupidity. Then she reaps the fruit of her stupidity. Not just difficult but maddening. This makes absolutely no sense.

There are quite a few moments of Rose getting to know her new neighbors. Everyone but Sean seems to be friendly and welcoming. Sean goes back and forth between being just downright mean and somewhat welcoming. But for a while, he is not just mean, he is a dictator acting in what appears to be revenge. What he is doing would be criminal except with him being local and Rose foreign, she could never get justice.

I do not understand why she spends time with Sean, flirts with him and even lets him touch her. His tyranny miraculously disappears somewhere before the mid point. And they start to build a relationship just like none of it happened. At this point the story starts exploring Rose's deeper feelings. At one point she expresses an idea that sounds a lot like young people living for themselves with no thought of children. But she expresses other thoughts as well, so it's hard to define Rose. Possibly Rose can't define Rose. Fear of feeling trapped seems to be deeply seated and drives much of her story from that point. Fiona Gubelmann does a good job showing Rose's struggle.

For me this was two movies. One made me very angry and I would like to forget it. The other was more enjoyable. Taken together, I won't watch this again.

The male lead was fantastic as grumpy Irish love interest in this hate to love Hallmark holiday romance set in the lush green of Ireland. Home flipper Rose buys an as-is Irish cottage sight-unseen. When she arrives she meets local know-it-all Sean, who turns pretty grumpy when he finds out she wants to just fix-it and flip-it. As the preservation society's preservationist, Sean has to approve all renovations of Rose's historic cottage.

Rose and Sean have great banter, which ends up being my favorite part of this film. I really liked the actor Eoin Macken who played Sean, but I thought the character of Rose was written a bit cold. I did appreciate that Sean didn't want to kiss her when he thought she wasn't interested in commitment or settling down. As a romantic I was thrilled with the conclusion and I'm glad it went the route it did...and lamb chop was cute!

Some of these movies turn into travelogues, and that's okay. Sometimes they don't do enough with the local color, but Tis the Season to Be Irish includes plenty of local color and local characters. Whether or not it truly captures the feel of living in an Irish village, it sells what it delivers, both in scenery and characters.

Here the romance between the "Yank" house flipper and the local real estate agent/preservationist is a gentle sort with little real drama, and even the early hint of the antithetical romance doesn't last long.

Just as a note, we have friends in the UK who own and live in a listed property, and the hoops they had to jump through to make upgrades to the building, which was only a Tudor farmhouse, was much more involved than depicted in this film. It really doesn't go far enough on that account. The major difference is here the approval comes from one man, when normally it would go before a council which would vote on the proposed changes.

6.1 stars.

Is Christmas 2024 the year of bad attitudes? I cannot figure out the charm of this movie, no pun intended. It jumps around and the two leads hate each other, he is full of endless dry sarcasm and she is disdainful beyond all limits. The whole viewing experience is flat.

Of course they have to fall in love at some point, that's the plan. But suddenly they have an affinity for each other and I don't know where it came from, because they fully disliked each other about 30 seconds ago, and suddenly the next day there is some attraction?

Hallmark loves filming in Europe, but most of the plots are fluff and pointless. The story should always come first, the setting is secondary.

This film is not realistic and it certainly doesn't flow. Why does this unfortunate lead female get stuck with such poor roles. I like her as an actress.

Positive note: the last 15 min (8.0 stars) was wonderful,!endearing and nice, as if they replaced the writer, but it was a tough road getting there. Not good enough to elevate the movie above a 6.1.