A Tale of Two Christmases

A nice Christmas film, using a not so original idea but being far by boring.

The only problem is the two complicated story by alternatives. And their use in not most inspired manner.

But, sure, some romance, some humor, a Santa real special are pretty good points. The too fragile chemistry between she and the men of her life is another little problem. But Christmas atmosphere, like the supporting actors are reasonable solutions source and, in essence, this is the matters thing, not ignoring the target of this genre of films.

Not impressive but just nice . In my case, the idea of alternative events is the good point of film.

This is one of those movies that starts off with an interesting premise, bounces around in confusion, and just takes an agonizingly long time to wrap up. It manages to hit the point of no return, where you might feel you've already invested (wasted?) sufficient time to justify sitting through the inevitable. Your reward is the slow, inexorable (excruciating?) suction into its sappy, sloppy, conclusion where our protagonist chooses to surrender her career to a drama king "for love".

If you're in the privacy of home, you're inclined to yell at the TV in frustration.

And for a rom-com, it's not that funny. I gave it a 4 because the leads really did try to make the best of a rat's nest haircut.

Speaking of which, for gawd's sake, you get a candy cane out of your luxurious hair with hot water, not by having your meddling, inept, yakkity-yak MOTHER hack it out with kitchen shears!

I don't understand why so many are confused by or stymied by the dual timeline but I have my suspicions.

The key to which reality she's in at any given time is even minor attention to the detail of what she's wearing. The split screen at the start gives a big clue- in one reality she's wearing a winter white coat while in the other she's wearing a bright white coat. I won't even enumerate the many others.

The movie was cute and I didn't hate it but it was another mediocre Hallmark by the numbers romance they work into everything (over-achieving, over-dressed women, frequent , very long commercial breaks, etc.) complete with the picture perfect ending.

If only we all had these problems...two sweet and attractive guys like you and your successful at your job and have a loving family to go home to.

Emma (Katherine Barrell) is a beautiful successful architect living in the city, but heading home for Christmas...or at least she is supposed to. This is where the story splits, in one scenario she makes her flight home and gets to enjoy Christmas with her family and the sweet boy next door and in the other she misses her flight and ends up spending Christmas Eve in the city with a dreamy lawyer who works in her building.

Honestly, I get why it ends the way it does...but I kind of liked the dreamy lawyer Max played by Evan Roderick. It was nice not to have any villains in this split scenario.

It was kind of a middle of the road holiday romance, but slightly different than the usual Hallmark fare...so maybe worth a watch.

I'm a big fan of Hallmark's what if? Alternate reality movies so I was looking forward to this movie. Lacey Chabert starred in a good one called "Family For Christmas", Nikki Deloach was in another good one called "A Dream of Christmas" and Eloise Mumford was luminous in "Just in Time For Christmas".

A Tale of Two Christmasses, however, is more like Gwyneth Paltrow's Sliding Doors, which showed two different realities play out depending on whether Gwyneth's character catches a subway train or not. Sliding Doors was more dramatic (way more dramatic). Here, Emma, played by Katherine Barrell, is a Chicago architect who has two different realities play out depending on whether she makes or misses a flight out of Chicago. The biggest problem with both movies is that it's hard to effectively show two movies, about two different stories, inside one movie. There really isn't enough time to see both alternative realities play out in a meaningful way.

Emma has a crush on a lawyer in her building named Max, played by Evan Roderick. The movie seems to take subtle jabs at his work for the environment (the owls) which annoyed me. He seemed OK but his dislike of real Christmas trees was presented as some sort of defining strike against him. Instead, we're supposed to root for Drew, Emma's old platonic high school friend back home. He's played by a pleasant Chandler Massey. I liked him in 2021's amazing Next Stop Christmas, another alternate reality movie that, frankly, is way better than this one.

I don't recall seeing Katherine Barrell before, but she was fun to root for. Unfortunately, she seemed a bit too clumsy, confused and less than competent until she made her renovation suggestions at the ski lodge. I don't mind clumsy and confused in a character, but we kind of had to take it on faith that there was a reason to call her "Perfect Peterson".

I also didn't like the scene with Aunt Martha. It was way too weird. Playing dementia for laughs can be tricky, especially for those of us with family members suffering from it.

Also, the ending, and the big life choices made, seemed a bit forced, especially given the short time frame. I get a little frustrated with Christmas movie characters who literally up end their entire lives and make dramatic changes based on the experience of a few days. Here, Emma made life changing decisions based on a couple of days. That made no sense to me.

I was also troubled by how Drew would pretend to be someone he wasn't. It was a little sad to hear him respond that "I'm still mostly me". And as sad as it was to hear him say "I'm tired of waiting for you to see me", what "me" was that?

I grade Hallmark on a curve, but this seems like a 6 at best.