Deck the Walls

I almost dnf'd this in the first 10 minutes, but I persisted and I can't say I am happy about that...with the exception of getting to see Carolyn Hennesy as Aunt Gigi. This film starts as a hot mess. The dialogue is awkward, the meeting between characters is awkward, there are lots of sad themes liking bullying, divorce, poverty, death, coping techniques, loss of family home to fire, etc. For me this added a lot of negatives to what should be a light Hallmark holiday film, add in that this had advertising imbedded in it for both HomeGoods and Nutella and it rapidly moved into a film I not only can't recommend, but don't want to watch. (Not that I have anything against either HomeGoods or Nutella, but we are already watching too many commercials on cable which we pay for.)

The best part of this film was Aunt Gigi, played by the lovely Carolyn Hennesy. I have loved her as the tough but lovable mob lawyer on GH, where she has set an example of a strong, loyal, independent woman for years. The other aspect that was enjoyable was the exterior of the fixer-upper home. I am sorry to say those two items don't push this over into the recommendation category for me.

I sat down to watch the 2024 Hallmark Christmas movie "Deck the Walls" as part of my 2024 December Christmas Movie Marathon. Sure, I had never heard about this movie prior to watching it, but I figured with it being a Hallmark movie, then it couldn't be all bad. Sure, it might be super sappy, as Hallmark movies tend to be, but I still opted to give director Jake Van Wagoner's 2024 movie a fair chance.

Yeah, I didn't really have the biggest of expectations to the movie, so I suppose that the writer Tracy Andreen and Danny Pellegrino had every opportunity to bedazzle and entertain me.

However, I found the narrative in the movie to be rather mundane. It wasn't a particularly entertaining movie. Sure, it was watchable, but the movie was just lacking that particular Christmas spark that many of these sappy movies usually have. It was a pretty generic storyline, truth be told, and not a particularly great one at that.

Of the entire cast ensemble I was only familiar with Wes Brown and Adam Johnson. While the acting performances in the movie were fairly good in general, I have to say that I just didn't particularly like leading actress Ashley Greene, as she lacked charisma and on-screen sparkle to make it a believable sappy Christmas movie.

While I did make it through the entire 84 minutes that the movie ran for, I was only mildly entertained. I can honestly say that I am not returning to watch this movie a second time. And if you enjoy sappy Christmas movies, let me just say that there are indeed far better and more enjoyable movies out there.

My rating of "Deck the Walls" lands on a three out of ten stars.

I have watched and reviewed literally hundreds of Hallmark-like Christmas movies. Did I somehow miss it, or this year are the premises getting even more impossibly ridiculous? A charity house flip where the mayor takes away all the remaining money??? So how did they get anything more done? Rose keeps coming back with new stuff. Is it all donated? If this isn't enough fun, Rose and Brysen have a negative history that isn't totally revealed all at once. And the lead contractor, Sal, has a negative history with reporter assigned for PR. And the mayor told Sal it was a print reporter, but he is filming for TV including a live finale. Like I said, impossibly ridiculous and somewhat derivative.

Is this a rom/com because almost all of the first third or more of the movie has very little positive time with Rose and Brysen together. Overall, I think the relationship development between these two was rushed. There is a second romance between Sal and Jake.

The story seems a little slow probably because so much of it is reliving backstory. I think all the backstory is an attempt to pull heartstrings as everything develops, but I just couldn't get into it because the writers kept throwing obstacles at the project. There are several musical interludes. Filler? Despite the project being such a rush there is still time for parlor games, karaoke, and ice skating.

The acting is OK, the dialogue has some good moments but also ones that are bland.

BTW my pet peeve is text messages that are too small to read. There is one just before the climax. I paused and got right next to the TV and still couldn't read it. I still don't know if it contributed to the important moment.

Not the best Hallmark movie ever made but also far from the worst. I like Wes Brown and I like Ashley Greene; they always elevate these productions with their presence and their chemistry was on point.

"Deck the Walls" rolls out the old 'professional returns to their home town for the first time in years' and it does so with a charity aspect.

Of course, there was the standard moment of miscommunication moment two thirds of the way into the movie, but that - of course, and as is expected - was resolved neatly before a heart-warming ending.

I'm sure some people will be upset by the secondary couple being gay, but I wasn't. Their storyline added something to the movie, rather than them being there just for diversity.

Solid Hallmark Christmas fun.

A looked forward to watching Deck the Walls mostly due to the cast. The house flipping/renovation Holiday Hallmark film is not a novel concept, but I really like both Ashley Greene and Wes Brown. I was impressed with the remainder of the cast leads as well. However, as others mentioned, the motivation behind the character's emotions towards one another took too long to be revealed, and while I do appreciate line upon line development, it was hard to get a grasp on, especially for a Hallmark movie. It would have been very easy to drop that Rose had a crush on Brysen growing up in the initial conversation with Sal. Even still, I didn't understand why she had such animosity towards him when he didn't even know. It would have been one thing if there was a conflict in their history, but nothing. He didn't know, he was with his high school sweetheart, and she kept it hidden. I also felt that the development between Sal and Jake was a little forced. I liked how the backstory unfolded but something just wasn't there. I also felt this featured the most intentional product placements I've seen in Hallmark movies before. Subtle placement is fine, but this was a bit over the top and I feel took a bit away from the film. I love Nutella though, and those cookies looked fire! I think if you are already fans of Ashley Greene, Wes Brown, or Danny Pellegrino, you will enjoy this just fine. It's a good movie to have on while baking cookies- far from the worst one of the season, but is far from an instant classic. It otherwise fits the typical rom-com story arc- here's to a Christmas wish that future lead characters won't be so weakened by odd insecurities or misunderstandings/miscommunication.