Um Natal Premiado

Elizabeth Berkley is once again the freshest thing in an otherwise stale movie, this one made-for-TV. Sorry yuletide concoction attempts to equate car theft, a lottery win, ice hockey and last-chance boy-girl romance with the holiday spirit. Financially-strapped single mom (whose husband disappeared somewhat mysteriously before the story begins) has her car stolen with a special "Christmas lottery ticket" in the glove compartment. Of course the ticket is a winner--worth an underachieving one million dollars--and of course the guy involved in the car-nabbing is a handsome bachelor with a soft spot for struggling moms and their offspring. Berkley actually manages to make her scenes tender and believable, however the rest of this Hallmark Channel presentation is rather bedraggled.

About ten minutes into this Hallmark Christmas movie, I was thinking that this was going to a variation on Rene Clair's 1931 movie, LE MILLION, in which a poor man in a Paris tenement wins the big lottery -- and loses the ticket. Alas, despite some good acting, particularly from Jason Gray-Stanford, best known for his role as the klutzy police detective in the MONK TV series and good work by Elizabeth Berkley as the chef who could really use the million-dollar lottery ticket, this is a rather straightforward story without much in the way of jokes .... a comedy if not a farce. In addition, the problems that hang over the movie for almost its entire length serve not to make it suspenseful -- will he figure out how to get that ticket back to her without blowing his chances? -- but mildly depressing.

Still, the story is a good one, the actors are very good and if the direction makes me think that the point is the money, rather than the people.... well, maybe it is.

This is not really a Christmas film, it's a romance set at Christmas time. So there's no real festive spirit or seasonal joy.

What you do get though is a more realistic, than normal, love story. Elizabeth Berkley does a great job playing the struggling mother who wants to give her son everything while having the job she dreams of. She works hard at three jobs trying to bring her dreams to fruition. So when she wins the lottery all her dreams come true... only to be ripped to shreds when her car is "borrowed", along with the winning lottery ticket. She does a great job showing the emotional roller-coaster she's on... and before things get better they get worse.

Jason Grey-Stanford does a passable job of depicting the charmer who, unintentionally gets pulled into Elizabeth Berkley's life. There are a few laughs and heartwarming moments along the way, but I doff my cap to the writers and director for taking a more realistic storytelling path.

In all the glitzy, schmaltzy, Christmas tales this is a breath of fresh air; one that I would recommend. If it's repeated in a couple of years I'll probably give it a second viewing.

The run up to Christmas is the one time of year I am prepared to watch predictable and cheesy films.

This film is just about as predictable as it gets, you know what is coming from the first minute and you aren't proved wrong. Sometimes however you really do just want to watch something undemanding and this fits the bill.

What makes this an above average TV Movie is the cast. It suddenly clicked halfway through that Elizabeth Berkeley is the 'star' of the infamous 'Showgirls'- but she is OK in this movie. The real star however is Jason Gray-Stanford who I thought excellent in this.

I watched this film with my wife and kids and we all enjoyed it so I recommend it to those who know what to expect.

Well, I use to like the most Christmas movies but this one was a hard one to really like. Actually I found it very stressful to watch. Even the end was stressful and gave me no relief, as these movies use to. I will not be more specific because I don't want to give any spoiler.

It started with bad conditions right away. Several characters were unlikable from the start. They made bad decisions and made you very much question their characters and moral. After that it was hard to feel any positive feelings for them and to really root for anyone.

Their relationship also made several not credible jumps forward that made me surprised. It felt very rushed sometimes. Overall the movie felt unprofessional at several occasions. Other times they acted well and it felt credible.

So with a plot where they wouldn't have made these questionable things and some better direction this movie could have been much much better. It had some potential.

Now this movie is 14 years old and Hallmark seems to have learned. So according to my opinion they now makes much better movies, without such questionable decisions and characters in the leading roles in them.