Christmas in Paris

I saw it in UK this week. and was Curious about what those actors have done before - except for Daphne Zuniga of course. Rebecca Dalton soooo Beautiful. love her I ll check out her other films if I can see them on Neftlix or Amazon. Karl Landler's accent so..... romantic :PPPPP. Not sure if I can watch his work I don t speak french. :(((.

A woman meets a wealthy French businessman and he whisks her away to Paris for a trip. It's nice to see someone not struggling financially on TV for a change. It's fantasy after all But he has some demons about his biological father. A little crisis ensues. They used a real French actor which has good and bad pionts. His accent is real but hard to understand. The girl is pretty. Liked seeing Daphne Zuniga as her boss. This is not Hallmark so it's something different from the usual fare. UPTV usually has some message of forgiveness.

This was not a Hallmark movie. The video quality was actually awful. It looked as if the movie was shot 10 years ago. The CGI snow was ridiculous. It really added nothing to the story.

The storyline was not completely typical. There were some usual parts though: Dead parent and misunderstandings. The storyline, acting and music made me feel like I was watching a soap opera. There were series parts that I actually laughed at. Like when he's having that stern conversation with his father. It was so fake stern that it was laughable.

It was entertaining enough to watch once. All in all the acting, wardrobe and scenery (minus the snow) was done well. And minus her lit up country drapes in her bedroom. What was that? She seemed way more sophisticated than that. She was a model, so she probably had good money.

I don't "highly" recommend it. If you miss it, you miss it. If there's nothing else you want to watch, you may be entertained if you like soap operas and typical cheesy Christmas romance movies.

It looks like a lot of the French filming was done in Lyon and not Paris. Especially, by the river. You get a couple shots of the Eiffel tower and that is it. If you're looking to see a lot of Paris scenery, you will not find it. I was just there two months ago. That is how I figured out they were shooting in Lyon. Scenery was not matching up to what I saw, so I did a little digging. The Café 203 they eat at is in Lyon. When you look at pictures of the river in Lyon, they totally match up with what was shown in the movie. Lyon actually looks more Italian than French. It looks a lot like Florence. At first I thought it was Florence but then I looked up the café. There is only about one or two minutes of French scenery shown.

Now, for starters, I would like to say that I am all for the Hallmark/Lifetime formula. It works! This film does not. It is so boring that it actually became confusing at times because I had trouble focusing for more than 30 second intervals. The characters are not even two-dimensional. They have no personality traits besides "bad relationship with dad" or "dead mom," so the "deeper" themes that they were going for fall flat. The decorations in the background clash, but even by themselves, they are ugly (see poorly painted wooden snowflake things on barn wall). Furthermore, the audacity to call a movie Christmas in Paris and a) have most of it take place in Montana, and b) not even shoot in Paris, is astounding. I wish that this had been a soulless Christmas movie like Hallmark or Lifetime would put out, but it isn't. Instead, it feels like my soul has also been crushed.

Christmas In Paris (2019) -

Having been a tad distracted by a jigsaw puzzle the last time I watched this one, I thought that I would try it again, but I actually found it even worse on the second viewing, because I could clearly see the faults this time.

Overall I found the production values to be lacking, with sets that didn't seem appropriate for the successful business people that they were playing and the camera filter was too pale, while the soundtrack was really cheap. There were also some very odd wardrobe choices too.

The lead female, Rebecca Dalton wasn't exactly the stunning actor that I would have expected to play an ex model and I didn't really like her character much either.

And he was very "French", that is to say, brusque, even though he was trying to flirt with her. The last time I reviewed this I commented how attractive he was and although I don't think my tastes have changed that much, I have to say I must have been a few glasses of wine in, because actually his character was not very pleasant, which made him unattractive physically too.

The story was actually a sweet romance and with potential, but let down by all the issues that I saw. They obviously spent the budget on actually going to Paris, which was something I suppose, unlike 'Christmas in London/A Christmas Exchange' (2020), which was just dire.

And the character of Gerald was made out to be some kind of 'Godfather' character as well, which I found very weird and distracted from the main romantic storyline. It was very dramatic and Randy Thomas in the role gave a terrible acting performance.

Also, and once again it seemed, the argument that broke them apart, that we all knew was coming, was daft and she sulked a lot, far too much for one film.

It doesn't look like I will be revisiting this one for a third time, as there are too many to watch that are much better from this genre.

4.07/10.