Rosemont

Ok - super low budget - but surprising and just perfect for the season - not the best not nearly the worst....thoroughly surprised and we enjoyed it....

We've seen all the snowed-in Christmas movies. Some include the pain of the travel problems. Some just basically cut right to snowed-in. Either way, the romantic leads get off to a rough start and "warm" up to each other after a while. This movie barely resembles those other ones.

A 19 year old pregnant woman, Lisa, is running from something. Her bus gets rerouted back where it came from because of snow so she convinces a male stranger, Brad, to take her onward. They run off the road and after nearly freezing find a closed down inn. The owner is an angry older woman who meets them with a gun. Fortunately the male handy man calms her down so they take the couple in.

So far, except maybe for the gun, it's kind of familiar. There are a couple of things the viewer can see coming, but it's not in the usual way. For one thing, the owner has a backstory that unfolds a bit at a time. Pieces come together and things get a little sentimental. Instead of baking cookies and building snowmen, one of the more interesting activities is a slightly sanitized scene of delivering a baby.

The acting was good. Each of the couples had chemistry, even if at times it was like sandpaper for one of them.

I like that not all things are tied up tightly and the viewer can decide at least one or two things.

I liked this film. The viuals were amazing and the proprietess of the lodge nailed her role. Well acted, some convoluted plot pieces that needed a lot of explaining within the film, but nevertheless a very reasonable watch for the season. Recommend.

I don't think Rosemont is a film that will appeal to the masses, and although it has an underlying Christmas theme (the alternate title is A Christmas at Rosemont) it is more a story of two women, one older named Josephine (Grace Zabriskie) and wiser, and one younger named Lisa (Ayla Kell) who is unsure if she even wants to continue with her life.

Now Josephine owns a once thriving winter retreat named Rosemont which has been closed for the past 18 years and her able but often hard drinking caretaker Abe (Brad Dourif) always seem to be on latter sides of the fence when it comes to making any decisions about the outside world.

When two young people named Brad (Brendan Michael Coughlin) and a pregnant Lisa (Ayla Kell) attempt to get out of the cold after their car falls off the road during a winter storm they are met by Josephine's gun barrel. Then Josephine's capable caretaker Abe influences Josephine but only after winning a had fought argument with her that these two young people must get out of the storm or they will surely die.

Each of these four characters who must now share a roof for at least one night get to know each others story of who they are and why they feel the way that they currently do. As each character starts beginning to have feelings of empathy for the other three they all find a way to enjoy each others company for a few more days and nights ...and then Christmas comes and all is good in the world once again.

Mrs. Shullivan and I both enjoyed this Christmas themed film but it may not be for everyone's taste unless you have a warm spot in your heart for soppy stories.

It rates an 8 out of 10

A pregnant teenage girl needs to get to Denver, the bus she is riding must turn back because of snow at the passes. Having a snack at a roadside cafe she overhears a young man headed that direction, he has a 4 wheel drive car, so she begs him to take her with him. I seriously considered abandoning this movie after about 10 to 15 minutes but stuck with it and was rewarded with a very nice little movie about relationships.

As fate would have it the two travelers go off road and get stuck in a snowstorm, they make it to a resort that it turns out has been closed for 18 years, ever since the owner's family, including a 1-yr-old granddaughter, went missing in a small plane crash. But they have sympathy for the travelers and take them in.

While the two younger actors are both good, the movie is really made good by Brad Dourif who in the role of Abe is sort of the caretaker of the closed resort. But the better one is New Orleans native, Grace Zabriskie (about 75) in the role of Josephine, the owner of the resort. Things develop in an unexpected manner, in all an entertaining movie that branches into relationships as its primary focus.

My wife and I watched it as an Amazon streaming movie.