Inn for Christmas

Mandy Leeds (Jonna Walsh) is a regional manager at a hotel conglomerate in Miami. She's visiting her grandmother (Jayne Eastwood) for Christmas. She runs into old rival Lucas Menzino (Jesse Hutch) who stole her rental car. The rivalry continues when both end up chasing after the same local hotel.

Their rivalry needs better banter. They are too nice and too bland. There is no heat in the rivalry and the inevitable relationship. Instead, they seem to be low-simmering and stalling the inevitable conflict. Then there is the hotel. They need an interesting looking hotel. If they're fighting over it, it needs to be the central piece. This is Lifetime trying to fight back against Hallmark. They are certainly not doing anything more than that with this one.

So happy to see something different on the seasonal movie front. Quite frankly I happened across it by chance and didn't intend to watch the entire movie. The cast kept me with it. Jesse Hutch (Lucas) and Jonna Walsh as Mandy are very good together but what really hooked me? Veteran Canadian actors Jayne Eastwood and Art Hindle. Yes--a simple story line but who cares? The actors (one and all) are excellent and make it work. Highly recommended!!

I really enjoyed this movie. It is a warm, fun and entertaining Christmas romance, one of Lifetime's better movies this year, I thought. The story centers around Mandy (played by Jonna Walsh) and Lucas (played by Jesse Hutch), former high school classmates, who are both back in their hometown for the holidays and, more importantly for the plot, both competing to buy the same local Inn. The story is fun and cute with some entertaining dialogue, especially between Mandy and Lucas. It was quite a predictable story, of course, but it kept me engaged thru-out (i.e., it pulled me in from the start). What made this work on screen was the acting. Overall, it was brilliant. Walsh had this warm and happy vibe to her performance as Mandy, which was great. It was easy to connect with her character as a result. Hutch had a convincing performance too. Similarly, he had a sort of happy and kind (and a bit flirtatious) vibe to his performance. Together, it made for great chemistry on screen. It was one of the strengths of the film, I thought. The supporting cast too was outstanding. Jayne Eastwood (playing Gram) and Art Hindle (playing Ernie) were quite the cute couple, and Elena Juatco's performance (playing Jackie, Mandy's hometown friend) was fun to watch. The scenery, props and sets were charming and festive. The red dress Mandy wore to the Christmas party was stunning; it had a great cut, I thought. The performance (singing and dancing) at the Christmas party was great (a fun scene). It instilled a bit of festive spirit. All in all, this is a cute, fun and, more importantly, engaging Christmas movie. It is a nice new addition to Lifetime's 2020 lineup.

The leads, Jesse Hutch and Jonna Walsh, playing Lucas and Mandy respectively, are really very engaging in their roles. They have very good chemistry and great banter. Most of the supporting cast, from the best friend to the grandmother and the inn owner, fit very well into the movie and are quite likable. If the movie had sort of kept to this initial script, then I think it would have come off as a better movie overall even if it's something we'd seen before.

But they throw in a few ill-advised twists and diversions that really affect what was seeming to be a good watch. The closest thing this movie has to a villain is poorly conceived along with poorly written in the storyline. The character was too remote and unincorporated into the movie to have the influence they ended up having in throwing a wrench into the storyline. There's a "secret" revealed at an inopportune moment that didn't appear to be an actual state secret given that the female lead openly divulged this info to 3 characters in the movie before the reveal, didn't tell them to keep that info to themselves. This was more strange that bad, and it made you think less of the female lead that she was openly deceiving someone who trusted her after initially appearing to be upfront. And lastly, a truly jarring twist that though you might see coming as I did, makes it no better when it occurs. It's a strange twist for what they appeared to be trying to accomplish through most of the movie and it's like they suddenly inserted a game cheat code and fast-tracked everything to get to the finish line.

There really are some very likable and engaging parts of this movie. The former high school rivals getting to know one another again years later and liking what they see is a tried and true storyline that works and does so again here. Actually, the movie was good (I'd have probably rated it an 8 on a Hallmark/Lifetime TV movie ranking scale) through the first hour and 40 minutes or so. It's a shame the writing became rough and disjointed at the end and prevented this from having an ending that was more reflective of the movie as a whole.

I use, very often, the term nice for define Hallmark movies. In this case , correct sounds some better.

First for supporting actors beautiful job.

Second for main actors, beautiful and good workers for the nice sparkles of characters.

For fine define of values , from friendship and love - in various forms- to the fair decision and the feminine version of Peter Pan syndrome.

But the story ? You know it so well than it becomes a sort of pretext. Nothing serious, same recipe and same ways for craft it but the nice portraits proposed by. Art Hindle, Jayne Eastwood,Tammy Isbel and especialy Kelly Van der Burg are just beautiful and. Jonna Welsh and. Jesse Hutch are pretty in many senses, reminding , in fair way, old classic fairy tales.