Noël à l'unisson

What a heartwarming movie about coming home for Christmas. Having lived abroad for so many years I always find coming home at Christmas was always the best time to spend with my family & friends. I have only watched two movies ("Dear Secret Santa" being the first)with Tatyana Ali and,she is has been added to my favourite actresses list. I find her so endearing in her roles,so natural,pretty and,such a joy to watch.

Plastic smiles and dito accidental tear, hollow characters, overloud background music, predictable plot (even the 'twist'), life in a super sweet smalltown versus bad, bad big town. A boring lovestory, all wrapped around the creation of a horrible, horrible song. Yes, it has it all and yes, it is a toe curling movie. The only reason I finished watching it was that I was sort of trapped on a sofa during a family moment.

For once I could watch a movie just for fun. It actually reminded me some of "Sweet Home Alabama". Another movie I could relax and enjoy. I could enjoy "Jingle Belle" with my grandkids and not have to worry what they're seeing or hearing for one moment. The movie might be called "quaint", but when I was growing up it would have been the norm for a family movie. Quaint is just fine in my book, especially for a Christmas movie.

Jingle Belle (2018) -

This was one of those films of this genre that I put on expecting to hate and turn off straight away, purely based on the fact that I've seen the story before and I was worried that it would just be an excuse for a 'Cosby Show/Fresh Prince Of Bel Air' reunion, but it made the cut after all and I found that I did enjoy it.

Belle returned to her hometown to find inspiration for a biscuit jingle and assist with writing a song to celebrate the towns 50th Christmas celebration. When she got there she found that she would be paired up with her ex boyfriend and as the story progressed, each had to thaw out to let the other one back in. It was incredibly clear what would happen to upset things once they had started to become friends again, but it was done in a way that flowed sensibly at least. And there were no "What? Why would they do that?" moments where I would have to scream at the TV "Don't be an idiot" which I have repeatedly done this year for other films.

My criticisms would be that it was a bit short on extras for the tree lighting and it was a shame that at times it was incredibly obvious that the film was recorded in the height of summer.

Also some of the chronology was a bit off with them going out for the night, whilst others were still working, etc or the sun was out when it was supposed to be an early winter evening.

As a positive though it was nice that at least all of the singers could actually sing for a change. There's nothing worse than a film about an amazing singer and how great they are that turns out to be someone nice to look at, but with only a basic knowledge of what makes a tune or even worse they're ugly too.

Not my favourite of the films I've seen this year, but at least I didn't feel the need to turn it off at any point. Although it probably won't make it to my immediate rewatch list, I might come back to it again in my autumn days at the old folks home.

6.45/10.

Really wanted to like 'Jingle Belle' so much more and like it as much as some of the other reviewers. Being somebody that did find the idea kind of cute and who likes films centered around making and performing music, regardless of it not being novel. Get a lot of pleasure watching Christmas films and Christmas has always been very special to me, so there was no negative bias against the film from the get go. Far from it.

'Jingle Belle' had potential, not massive but it was there. To me, it just didn't live up to it. Is it a terrible film? No, there are far worse films out there. Is 'Jingle Belle' good? To me, no it wasn't and felt too that the bad outweighed the good. The good things are there and they aren't small, but the bad things stuck out at me more, not just because of there being more bad than good but also the flaws were bigger in size than the strengths.

Did like most of the acting, with the two leads especially being very appealing. Tatyana Ali in particular is a joy and their chemistry is sweet and has a genuine spark. The twist mentioned elsewhere was a nice and a welcome and successful attempt of breaking away from complete predictability, one that wasn't one prematurely foreseeable for me.

It looks good visually, the settings may not be authentic but they look attractive, as does the photography. Some of the music is pleasant.

Too much of it however for my tastes didn't balance well with the dialogue, it should have been used with a lot more subtlety in volume and in use. Am another person that didn't care for the main song, was squirming in my seat personally and felt that it was all noise but no soul with very uninspired text. While the acting was decent generally, Loretta Devine came over as annoying due to her overplaying her character. The characters mostly didn't irritate me but there needed to be more development to them.

One twist aside, this is very over-familiar territory in terms of story and executed in a quite hohum and quite dull way, taking time to get started and then running out of steam (nothing in the final act surprises). Nice ideas here, not followed through enough. The script is bland and the sentiment gets a bit too much in spots.

All in all, has its moments but not my cup of tea. 4/10