Christmas films can go either way, which has been my experience watching overtime the festive output of Lifetime, Hallmark and UPTV. They can either be well-meaning, charming, warm-hearted and don't feel too heavy. Or they can be too over-sentimental, cheesy, contrived and bland. There have been many films of theirs that have fallen in both camps and in the camp where there is a bit of both. 'My Sweet Holiday' in all honesty didn't appeal and did sound like one of the latter category films when reading the premise.
Lifetime's 2020 Christmas output didn't wow me and was a very mixed bag, but there were some surprisingly good films and the overall standard considering the circumstances could have been a lot worse. There were still misfires though (i.e. 'Christmas in the Highlands', 'Christmas Listing'/'Christmas Inn Farmstead'), and sadly 'My Sweet Holiday' is on the whole one of those misfires. It has good things, it takes a lot for me to say that anything film or television related has no redeeming merits, but there are also a lot of flaws and unfortunately the issues are big.
Am going to begin with the good things. It is a pleasant looking film, a lot of care and effort went into the photography and the festive decor and the scenery is more than easy on the eye. The music also has the right amount of festive spirit and is pleasant to listen to without being exceptional, it doesn't sound over-scored like Lifetime films can be.
'My Sweet Holiday' is a case of the supporting cast being much better than the leads. Patty Lambert and Remi Hilson gave very engaging, honest performances, just loved the warm hearted and adorable father and daughter scenes between Hilson and Jason Burkey. Burkey's performance is uneven, but he is incredibly charming in the family scenes.
It did take a bit of time to warm to him properly, for most of the first act he seemed too cold and uptight. He is certainly much better than Malone Thomas, who is just awful in a very wooden and expressionless performance and calling it either of those things is actually generous. It was like she had done the film for a favour and had started to regret it when it was too late, so decided not to try. She and Burkey have absolutely no chemistry whatsoever, one never feels the love and the passion for chocolate is not believable on either end because both looked so unenthusiastic about it. The only chemistry that rang believable in the film was between Burkey and Hilson.
Really didn't care for most of the characters, who are typical Lifetime cliche ciphers on the most part. Hilson's is the one with the most heart, but Burkey's took time to warm to when it took time for Burkey to ease into the role and Thomas' had no personality. Found the boyfriend character very unnecessary and his role in the story forced in rushed in development, also not making sense later on. The film could have done a much better job fleshing out of character motivations, which aren't really fleshed out at all. Any attempts are vague at best, introduced too suddenly and only touched upon too briefly, some of them in the latter stages don't make sense. Which was a major problem with the too unrealistically pat and fantasy land-like ending, while the coda is sickly and tacked on.
The script is far too cheesy and schmaltzy and doesn't flow very well at all, not feeling like everyday conversation. The story is severely under-baked, especially in the final act, and is dully paced and with very little emotional connection. Also found that it jumped about structurally, with too many things happening where one questions why has this happened which gave the impression that things that were meant to be in the film were left on the editing room floor. Not to mention the excessive predictability, very familiar scenarios executed in such a mundane been there done that with no originality way.
In conclusion, very lacklustre. 4/10.
