Le souhait de Noël

Wonderful Christmas movie with a great message about the power of forgiveness. The actors are great and not cheesy. They make the story very real and believable.

Kathleen (Catherine Mary Stewart) is a restaurant owner in a fairly large Western city. Christmas Day is coming fast but Kathleen is a Scroogette. Long ago, her father took off at holiday time, never to return. She insists that there be no decorations at the eatery and that the place will remain open on the Great Day. In addition, a newspaper food critic has ticked her off as well. So, she is in a bad mood when its quitting time. Ho, ho, things get worse when some punks try to mug her. But, happily, an old man, Sam (Muse Watkins) scares them off. Giving him a ride to the bus station, the two learn that Sam has missed his Greyhound. Not knowing what else to do, Kathleen invites him to stay with her, despite their recent friendship. Kathleen gets an additional guest when her boyfriend drops off his daughter, Lucy, in another emergency event. Having met once in the past, the two females don't really like or trust each other. But, stay together a bit they must. The last complication is a heavy snowfall, which prevents the three house mates from going anywhere the next day.....and the next. But, strangely, Sam begins to work more magic, helping Kathleen and Lucy start a friendship. Then, the weather improves and Sam comes up missing. Why has he gone without saying goodbye? This is truly a sweet Christmas film, with religious overtones, but rather somber. Nevertheless, its main theme of forgiveness is just what everyone needs. Stewart and Watkins are excellent, as is the young girl playing Lucy. Also pleasing are the sets, costumes, direction and heartfelt tale. For those who like to celebrate the holidays with a film, this is a nice choice.

This falls in the category of sappy Christmas movie, but it's a good one. It's a sweet story with likable characters and a satisfying ending.

Like most Christmas and/or feel good movies, the plot is a bit contrived, but nothing too far fetched. I especially enjoyed the young girl - once she got over the bratty phase and started letting her personality show. The old man - Sam - gave a heartwarming performance, and his reading of the story of Simeon was beautiful.

There is a message of faith, but it's subtle and you certainly don't feel preached at.

Am I the only one that thought the boyfriend was out of line charging in *with no notice* to his (clearly not longstanding) girlfriend's house WITH his kid's suitcase and expecting the girlfriend to take care of the kid overnight? And then, later, he has the sheer audacity to get peeved at her for taking in the man who saved her life, because she may be endangering his daughter?

This all happens early on as mostly the setup for the story, but I lost a lot of respect for the main character in those two scenes, because in everything else she's portrayed as tough as nails, and if she'd kept in character she would have told the guy to forget it. This scenario made it easy for the writer to set up the next events, but it made the story less strong. Even a small conversation about why he hadn't phoned her first to ask her if it was all right or even actually phoning and her agreeing to it would have saved both those characters in my eyes.

'A Christmas Snow', yet another recently seen Christmas film seen during my favourite holiday, could have gone either way. It could either have been very charming, cute and heart-warming, which is more my idea of what a Christmas film should be like. Or it could have been too schmaltzy and forced with unsubtle moralising. There are quite a number of examples of both extremes around, as well as a fair share of festive films that have elements of both and induce mixed feelings with me.

One Christmas film that fits into both camps and has elements of all the above is 'A Christmas Snow'. It is better than average with a good deal to like, one can see why it would connect with viewers and the effort that was put in. For me though, for all its good intentions and that it had its heart in the right place, it was not a great film and it is not hard to see why there are people that didn't care for it (also understand, and share some of, their reasoning).

It's a good looking film. Nice scenery. Slickly filmed. The music avoids being too constant or over-scored and captures the essence of Christmas quite well. There are thoughtful and moving moments in the script, the direction is visually slick and while far from perfect is not cold in the emotional department.

There is charm here, it gets very heart-warming towards the end, some of the second half is very poignant and the children are cute without being too cutesy. The actors all do quite well, Cameron Ten Napel is very heartfelt and Muse Watson's sincerity really shines through.

However, 'A Christmas Snow' can go too overboard on the sappiness so parts are too sickly sweet. While the film does pick up, it doesn't have the most promising of starts. The first half has a tendency at times to move too slowly and some of the story is very contrived.

Can see where one reviewer is coming from regarding the boyfriend, that did not strike me as realistic and yes she should have behaved tougher. Liked the well intended messaging but it could have been executed with a lot more subtlety.

On the whole, a little above average but for me it wasn't great. 6/10