Un Natale inaspettato

In Chicago, Elle Bennet (Brooke Nevin) plans to throw her college friends her annual misfits Christmas party. She's single and obsessed with coffee guy. They keep running into each other. Her boss has an emergency business issue. Despite being told to take time off, she insists on coming into the office. Maxwell Turner (Michael Cassidy) from the New York office is coming in to fix the problem. He turns out to be coffee guy.

These are two pretty people and their happy ending is inevitable due to its Hallmark pedigree. There is no drama for the first half. It's not until the midway point where the big conflict is introduced. It needs to be introduced much earlier. Even with the conflict, the tension simmers along at a pretty low setting. The romantic misunderstanding is too weak to make it into a real conflict. It's a Hallmark special with manufactured drama. It works for Christmas as holiday background noise.

This is a Hallmark film so everybody's smiling and happy here XD . Just before this one I'd tried to watch another Hallmark Christmas film and I switched it off after 15 minutes and rated it 1/10. So why this one 6/10? Well, because in the end it was OK to watch, even though there were some really unrealistic and naive things. Somehow they pulled it off, I don't really know how. And I loved that the protagonists, who were very charming, treated each other with respect (even though they were rivals), they weren't hysterical, judgemental or plain stupid. It was like a gulp of fresh air.

One of seductive Halmark films . Sure, the recipe is same but it has the gift to seems real different. Duty, love, Christmas and drops of old fashion, just fair romance. The result - more than seductive. In few senses, the deserved hot chocolate cup.

These two may have some of the best chemistry that I can remember for this kind of movie. (I have watched and reviewed hundreds.) Brooke Nevin is especially good in this role and this movie is pure Hallmark Christmas romance.

The story is pretty straightforward even a little predictable, although the ending is still touching on two fronts and it is set up very nicely. There are the token misunderstandings which add a little suspense.

Funny BTW: when the two are supposed to be skating and talking to each other, you don't see their feet, but their strides are obviously that of walking and not skating, not even clumsy skating. This is more obvious with Max.

Another BTW: when flipping through the TV movie titles, I flipped past this one a few times because I thought it sounded trite. Trite or not, the title gives no indication of what's in the movie.

It's a work movie set at Christmas. Not really anout Christmas. Brook Nevin is pretty and made the movie. Her love interest is a little stiff. I kept looking at him and thinking "he's a Reptilian" (People of Earth fans know what I mean). I am a little tired of seeing the same supporting cast in ALL of these movies. I guess Hallmark doesn't think anyone will notice...