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Addie takes a trip to Vermont for Christmas, where she forms a beautiful friendship with Nana - the sugar-powered matriarch who could probably fuel the National Grid. However, Nana's son James, a fine figure of a man with more jumpers than emotions, catches Addie's eye. Unfortunately, he's taken, which is a tragedy on par with running out of cinnamon sticks in this universe.

From the very start, everything glows like a Temu-sponsored snow globe. There are jangly Christmas tunes, perfect snowy rooftops, and decorations that could guide aircraft in a blizzard. Every scene is so immaculate it makes a DFS showroom look lived-in. The lighting bill alone could bankrupt a small country, but that's the price of heartfelt moments and unrelenting optimism, apparently.

James, our floppy-haired hunk, acts with the emotional depth of a soggy digestive. His jumper collection outperforms him. Violet - the big-city girlfriend - is pure Hallmark chaos in heels, radiating smugness while clutching oat milk lattes and saying things like "good people" without irony. Nana, on the other hand, is a glitter-fuelled menace. She's like Theresa May on a sugar rush, powered entirely by shortbread and uninvited advice.

By the time the final snowflake falls (with CGI precision), a shooting star blazes across the sky - just as our hunk makes his heartfelt wish to cook the perfect Christmas dinner. I could weep. In one scene, James clutches a small koala toy - displaying more emotional depth with it than in the entire film. Every problem is solved, every cookie baked, and every jumper changed - twice. There's not a hint of black ice, slush, or a single Nana-slipping-on-the-drive moment in sight, just glossy smiles and emotionally microwaved joy. It's the kind of film that believes love conquers all - including common sense and gas bills.

I'll give it this much: it's beautifully lit, absurdly cosy, and utterly detached from any known version of human life. If this is what Netflix thinks I'll love, the algorithm must be drinking eggnog by the gallon. Somewhere between the twinkle lights and the heartfelt cookie overdose of death, my British soul gave up and longed for a nice grisly horror.

It's a syrup-fuelled loop of sugary death, where nobody ages, nobody blinks, and nobody ever worries about where they'll store the decorations next year.

3/10.

Love the ex-pat actors from Hallmark (Trevor Donovan & Merritt Patterson) but these GAF movies are super low budget and desperately in need of better dialog with very limited scenery. Even the Xmas decorations look cheap compared to the competition of Xmas movies from Hallmark, UPTV, Lifetime, etc. I devour Xmas and romance movies so I'm a conosseur of this genre and frankly after the first 15-20 min, I fast forward to the end and didn't miss much with this film.

I'm a big fan of the lead actors and the plots of their past Hallmark movies were way more complex and watchable compared to this GAF release. I know many actors moved to GAF to get production credit but obviously they didn't get script approval. This movie felt more like a low budget community stage production with a quickly written script than what I've grown to expect from other seasonal releases.

I've often said that these Hallmark/Lifetime/GAC Family movies live or die based on their casting of the lead actors and how much chemistry those leads have. Safe to say, the producers got it one thousand percent correct when casting Canadian Merritt Patterson (one of my favourites, from ever since her early Hallmark days, through her incredibly risqué turn in 'Heatwave' and recent work on GAC Family) and Trevor Donovan, who is a sold actor and can always be counted on to turn in a good performance.

If Patterson and Donovan were good together two years ago in 'Jingle Bell Princess', they are GREAT here in 'Twas the Text Before Christmas', which features an inventive (if somewhat unlikely in real life) scenario that takes place over three Christmases (similar to one of my favourites, 'Four Christmases and a Wedding') and a well-cast group of secondary actors.

This slow-developing and pleasant movie is definitely one of the better Christmas movies you're likely to see in 2023.

The last GAF movie I watched had over the top autumn decorations and annoying background music. Fast forward to this Christmas movie and now we have over the top Christmas decor and more distracting background music. I'm not sure who thinks this adds to the movies but please stop!

Other than these distractions, I thought it was a good movie although the pace was slow, especially the romance between Addie and James. The leads, Merritt Patterson and Trevor Donovan, worked well together and I liked the interactions with Jayne Eastwood's "Nana". Probably not a movie I'd watch again but enjoyable for a one time view.

The GAF movies I wave watched so far have improved a little this year but the decorations & set design are awful to look at; too much just lumped on and it appears its recycled into several movies. It takes away from the improved story telling. Even the snow is visibly fake, no care is taken to create a convincing illusion of it. Someone is a sleep on the job and could do so much better with some effort Please please do not let your audiences and cast down with this lack of attention to the canvass on which the stories are told. Without which we are better off listening and not watching and that's a real let down.