Troca de Natal

I love movies like this, based on pure belief that there's no such thing as coincidence and everything happens as it should. Alicia Witt plays a perfectly innocent wise young woman, whose want to hold on to her father's memory by keeping his store is more about following your heart than your pocketbook. Her current (and wrong-for-her) fiancé, who is in real estate, encourages her to sell her memories (the store) and become a multi-millionaire because of the store's location. She realizes this man has no sensitivity or understanding of her feelings and who she really is. Of course, there's more to the story.....she had met another man in the most peculiar and humorous way, a way that probably really could happen. As it is said so beautifully in this movie, "Life is about Timing, and Timing is Everything in Life and Love.".

Hallmark follows pretty much the same story line with some slight variations. The good guys are incredibly good, the bad guys are terribly bad and there doesn't seem to be any gray areas in either group. The movie is saved by some nice performances, especially by Alicia Witt. She seems a genuinely nice person and you root for her to be happy. Of course, you pretty much know after the first 15 minutes how this will all turn out.

Alice owns an antique store and somehow hooked up with a stuffy corporate type which stretches belief right off the bat as there is absolutely no chemistry between them and they apparently have nothing in common (in first 5 minutes he plunks a really cheesy artificial tree the middle of her quaint antique shop). Because of the ever-present "deal", she ends up traveling to meet his family for the first time all alone.

In an incredible coincidence, she ends up meeting a man who shares the same last name as her fiancé and off we go to Hallmark World where she falls in love with a perfect but unrelated family. Once she learns the truth, she's off to the sterile mansion with the stony-faced, uptight soon-to-be in-laws. If you can't figure out what happens next then you've never seen a Hallmark movie.

I found the music distracting - as a matter of fact most of the newer Hallmark movies have that issue. The music is too loud or the voices are too soft but I often miss things and have to use closed captioning. I love Christmas music but tone it down already!

A charming film for its high unrealism, first. And for humor, spirit of family, effort to preserve the memory/ legacy of father and for a beautiful mistake of a young, real seductive young woman discovering, step by step, the truth in many senses. A beautiful film and beautiful performances, noble message and the taste of hot cocoa in Christmas Eve evening.

Alicia appears in several of our favorite Hallmark Christmas films, and some of them are among our favorites specifically because of her. There are only a couple we consider duds (like the snow globe film). Her quirky style works for us.

This story sidesteps many of the Christmas romance cliches, but does retain one which becomes central to the film ... the bad boyfriend trope. However, it's handled somewhat differently and the plot moves past it with a couple of intentionally awkward scenes which reveal to Witt's character just how wrong her fiancé is for her and how right the new man she discovered by accident.

The movie is funny with lots of warm moments and the awkward scenes with her fiancé's family sell her changing idea of what she wants in a relationship and in her life.

181212: Why am I so susceptible to love stories? I liked this film from the moment it started. Most of the credit can be given to Alice (Alicia Witt) who captured my attention and kept me intrigued. Slow paced but I never lost interest. A predicatable yet pleasant Christmas film. Well worth watching; at least once.