Une famille surprise pour Noël

This was such a lovely Christmas movie: a warm and engaging story with a beautiful holiday message, some wonderful and endearing performances, and just the right amount of Christmas spirit and festive cheer. Hands down, one of the best this year thus far. The story follows Vanessa (played by Aimee Teegarden) who, after receiving her family tree DNA test results, sets out to meet her biological father (Richard, played by James Tupper). She soon finds herself traveling to her new family's home for Christmas, meeting Kris (played by Andrew Walker), a friend of her new family, along the way. The DNA match storyline is the second, I believe, for Hallmark. The first was 'Love, Lights, Hanukkah!' which premiered last year (another good holiday movie). The script is well written. The writer does a great job of capturing this welcoming and lovely family as they meet and spend time with Vanessa. As a viewer, it was easy to connect and engage with the story, with the characters. I might have even shed a tear or two. Though the story has some minor flaws, as other reviewers have pointed out, this takes nothing away from the viewing experience, I felt, which was simply delightful. What makes this all work on screen, of course, is the acting. Overall, the performances were brilliant, especially Teegarden's. She had this warm and gentle vibe to her performance that was easy to connect with on-screen. Indeed, it made the family's welcoming nature much more believable and relatable. Tupper too had a very convincing performance as Vanessa's father. What about our Hallmark favorite, Walker? He too was impressive. His supporting nature seemed effortless. There was this natural eases between Kris and Vanessa, which made me immediately start rooting for them. Given the nature of the story, the chemistry between the two was just about right. The supporting cast is also noteworthy as they all brought something to the table in this one. All in all, it is a warm and heartfelt Christmas movie with some remarkable acting, a wonderful new addition to Hallmark's 2021 lineup. I highly recommend it.

A fresh story and a loving family are the canvas for a charming Christmas picture. There may be some minor inconsistencies , sure, but the characters feel real, effortlessly nice and loving. Andrew Walker seems relaxed and warm , as in his best roles. The real magic, though, comes from Aimee Teegarden. The script is mostly about her character and she delivers. Like a previous reviewer, I loved her in "Once upon a Christmas miracle" of a few years back. She is again wonderfully convincing in portraying a sweet vulnerable young woman and provides the rich emotions a good Christmas story intends to offer. It is great to watch a movie that leaves you feeling good inside.

This year the hallmark Christmas movies are actually good and this one is one of the best. What I liked about it the most is it's not all about the romance that's more the secondary story and it actually has a story.

Loved this movie. Loved the story, loved the acting, and loved the lack of unreal drama. The story was was pretty realistic. One unrealistic thing was that DNA sites don't give you the full name of a match, but still overall good movie.

I had originally skipped over this one, but I caught up to it later. It was very good. It's nice to have a movie hilight the family aspect of Christmas, and I also appreciate the presence of the story of our Lord's birth. That's gone by the wayside in recent years.

I noticed Tyler Hynes had a walk-through role in this, and Paul Walker (one of the stars of this movie) had a walk-through in Hynes' movie, An Unexpected Christmas. That was amusing.

Aimee Teagarden is cute as a button, and I think her acting has improved in the last couple years.

This is a nice, heartwarming Hallmark movie, in the tradition of nice, heartwarming Hallmark movies.

Enjoy.