Miracoli a Natale

It is very difficult to write I like it about this Christmas film. The first obstacle is the dusty story , the high predactibility and the not very happy option for the end.

It is unfair to write I hate it . Because Howard Hesseman and , for a small fist of reasons, Chevy Chase.

But it represents a nice try, helped, with good result, by Vermont locations.

And by the remind of roots and fruits of idealism of youth, about obstacles and bad understanding and about seductive wisedom of elders.

The romance ? Yes, it works decent. Not the chemistry but the science of Abigail Hawk to roll in nice sense the story.

Cold corporate city chick Riley, ventures out to quaint Vermont to shut down a company that makes outerwear and learns the value of having a heart. During this festive time we get a lot of these types of heart tugging propaganda. To remind those who lost the spirit of Christmas to re-visit good will towards people. Especially in a time where most towns are devastated by big business coldly killing off American labor. This time it's an outerwear company, thinly disguised for Patagonia. Abigail Hawk, as Riley, is atrocious. Sorry Abby, as Nicole Kidman doll-like as she is, her constant mugging as she delivers dialogue wouldn't be the problem if it weren't that it is incongruous to what she is saying. She persistently chooses the wrong facial expression in every scene. It's laughable. A perfect example of cold city fish earns a heart is better shown in "Curly Sue." Kelly Lynch is a much better stoic raider whose eventual arc has a heartwarming bend. It may also be the writing. As a very straightforward template..it's fine but boy, does it struggle to shoehorn exposition everywhere. The lines are corny and flat and...chuckling at your own jokes doesn't make the audience endear themselves to you if the dialogue is bad. It's bad. Meanwhile, the "love interest" Wyatt is a Patrick Dempsey standin who isn't all that charming. With as much energy as the great Howard Hesseman can muster, this is a flat check for him, a throwaway Morgan Fairchild and a (clearly bored) Chevy Chase. One wonders if this isn't the real Chase. He plays an obnoxious president/founder of a corporate raider company. These old SNL guys dig that role. Bill Murray in "Scrooged" comes to mind. Anyway, this incredibly bland movie gets a lump of coal. Sorry guys, director Fred Olan Ray seems to have choked the life from an already tired plot. And you can find better Hallmark movies out there. This seems to have been slapped together within a week.

The star of this movie is supposed to be Vermont. Outsider "savior" Riley (Abigail Hawk) wants to use the company's Vermontiness to save it. It is pretty clear that in addition to knowing nothing about the clothing business, no one associated with its production has ever been here or knows anything real about Vermont. The movie itself was filmed near Buffalo and could be anywhere USA. That town, East Aurora, would be one of the largest towns in Vermont - bigger than all but 20 of Vermont's 250 towns. Add horrible inauthentic dialogue, epically predictable plot, annoying characters, and wooden acting, and you've got an unwatchable Christmas disaster.

The movie itself wasn't bad. I'm a sucker for a cheesy romance movie but if you don't like those, you will not like this movie. The ending was a bit odd to me as well.

However as a Vermonter this movie annoyed me. This movie is supposed to take place in Vermont in December yet there was no snow. Has anyone that worked on this movie ever been to Vermont? This movie should have been placed in a generic place not Vermont because that certainly wasn't Vermont.

This whole mess can be summed up with one observation. If you're going to title your movie "Christmas in Vermont" do your best to NOT have all the cars driving around with New York plates. There are plenty of movies that are set in one place but filmed in another but there's usually someone whose job it is to make sure the coffee cup is put back in the right spot, the pen is in the correct pocket and that the license plates are correct! I'm not just mad about this one detail. The license plate thing is indicative of the film as a whole. Lazy. Take the easy way, don't pay attention to details, just get in, make your money and get out. I'm guessing the producers figured this was bound for a Hallmark audience... and audience where...

1. Nobody will notice the license plates (or care) 2. Nobody will notice the rehashed story-line (or care) 3. Nobody will notice the cookie-cutter formula (like sugar cookies but someone forgot the sugar and instead dumped in buckets of the cheesiest-cheese).

I would warn you about spoilers but, there AREN'T any. There are absolutely no spoilers. Yes, if you think it's going to happen it's going to happen. Maybe that's why they did it this way? This movie is as vapid as all the classic Christmas song remakes out there with tinkle bells and fake emotion. I actually had to take a shower after watching this movie. I just felt gross. Chevy Chase? Dr. Johnny Fever? Don't let the cast trick you into thinking this is a top notch production. Even they appeared sad to have to be in this. The big reveal-now-we're-in-a-fight moment at the end to stir up some drama? Giant pile of forced nonsensical crap! PLEASE, PLEASE for the love of all that is good in this world, please come up with something new or at least put on a warning at the beginning of the film: "WARNING: What you are about to see you've already seen... and WAY, WAY better."

3 stars because the first 1/3 of the movie was okay. Must be the writers quit writing part-way through so the producers, in order to finish the movie decided to assign some intern to watch the Hallmark channel for a week and write down everything they saw in an abridged version.