The Christmas Contract

Same old story - 2 people who pretend to be bf and gf end up falling for each other.

Hilarie Burton doesn't have much chemistry with her co stars generally but here it's compensated by a bunch of other co stars that are nice to watch. Cheryl Ladd and her real life Daughter Jordan are fun to watch. Robert Buckley is the writer love interest.

It's easy to get tired of the banal almost formulaic hallmark Christmas movies, but this is definitely one of their best IMO. I loved the chemistry between the 2 leads. Hilarie Burton's eyes literally sparkle when she looks at Robert Buckley, another actor with great charisma. The only 2 negatives that I noticed was, one, although the movie is called, "The Christmas Contract", they never read it before signing and there apparently are no conditions (so why the contract?). Secondly, other than Rocky, there are no Louisiana accents. The mayor in fact sounded like a New Yorker.. But these didn't detract enough from what I would call a very romantic movie and good entertainment.

The plot was the same ole thing: recently broken up girl goes home for Christmas, old boyfriend has new girlfriend, so girl brings a "boyfriend" to make ex jealous. However, it is nice that there are not the awkward mishaps with the family, the news of the pretend boyfrind isn't a family crisis.

When the real crisis comes, which WAS totally foreseeable, it was wrapped up in a touching way.

7 stars because the sound editing was awful. The dialog was difficult to hear at times because the music or background ambiance was too loud.

It is a refreshing story line for Christmas. No one over acted, they seemed relaxed & comfortable with each other. I kept getting confused--didn't know which was the mother and who were the daughters! They all looked the same age, really! Had to watch very closely to figure out which one it was!

Jolie (Hilarie Burton) is going home for the holidays and she finds out that her ex-boyfriend, who she has a long history with, is taking home his new girlfriend. So her best friend Naomi (Danneel Ackles) suggest taking her brother Jack (Robert Buckley) with her back to Louisiana to pretend they have a relationship.

I love One Tree Hill so I was looking forward to this. 5 people from the cast coming together for a Lifetime movie was everything (one was a surprise to me, even if he was only a couple of minutes).

The movie was good. The secondary characters were amazing. The chemistry was off the charts (of course, they are friends off screen). The plot was nothing special: we have seen this thousands of times. But Hilarie and Robert (Tyler, Danneel and Antwon) made it special for me.

My only complain was the loud music during certain scenes and the lack of scenes with Danneel and Antwon. I'm pretty sure any Hallmark/Lifetime fan will enjoy it. But One Tree Hills fans will love it.

(now give us a Joy and James movie please!)