Sous le charme du père Noël

I think this movie is okay. There reason i gave this so high rating is because of the female lead. I've been crushing on her for ears now.

Jennifer Walker (Laura Vandervoort) is head of marketing at a big South Boston Mall. She is in line for a big corporate gig at the parent company that owns the mall she works at as well as many others in the Northeast. However, due to flagging sales as a result of competition from other malls and online shopping, she is given an ultimatum from her boss: Find a way to bring attendance back up for the Christmas shopping season or her mall will be shut down and hundreds of employees will lose their jobs.

So, with less than a month to go to turn things around, she gets the inspiration to really spice things up. Why not have a Sexy Santa Competition to bring lots of young women shoppers to the mall instead of staying at home? A PG-13 level Chippendales-like competition ensues in which a bunch of hunky guys dance around shirtless in front of thongs of women who will decide who will become the next Mall Santa.

Jennifer can be quite the Scrooge, coldly firing the traditional old school Santa - who had been a staple at the mall for years - in order to bring in Sexy Santa. In one early scene she cuts in line at the outside coffee stand without any regard for those that had been waiting longer in the cold. One of those waiting is a young man called David Moretti (Nick Zano) who calls her out for cutting when he and all the others had been standing and shivering for so long. The insults fly and Jennifer walks off in a huff. But lo and behold, guess who turns out to be one of the contestants for the Sexy Santa competition!

As can be expected, there is much early tension and animosity between the two leads, given vastly different backgrounds. Jennifer has always been Corporate while David is just a family guy, an aspiring EMT, helping run his father's family pizzeria.

But just as predictable, she slowly warms up to him and it seems like they will build up a budding romance. However, she does already have a boyfriend, just another "suit" that works at the same big conglomerate she does. Complicating matters even further is the fact that the Moretti's Pizza is about to be shut down by the very same conglomerate that Jennifer works for, in order to build luxury condos.

Will David be able to save his dad's restaurant that has been in business for over 75 years? Will Jennifer be able to save South Boston mall, a place she has worked for over 20 years and who fiercely protects her co-workers? And just how will she break the news to David that it's her own company that has used nefarious means to help get Moretti's to shut down.

Originally airing on ABC Family, this movie was rated TV-14 and quite a bit more "sexed up" than the usual Hallmark Channel Christmas fare, The women generally wear more revealing outfits than in Hallmark movies and there are lots of guys dancing around shirtless (and not to be outdone, "sexy Reindeer" women dancers). You see adult women sitting on Sexy Santa's lap, and there are a few language references such as "ass", etc. There are a couple of gross out scenes during the dance competition and corny quotes all around.

The music, especially early in the film, was grating and annoying, and there are too many supporting characters and archetypical corporate caricatures. The potentially intriguing subplot of a small businesses trying to take on big corporate conglomerates seems too pat, like they had to use that as filler for a thin story-line. The main two leads are likeable enough, but somehow their budding romance does not seem convincing.

Sparks fly between a beautiful executive (Laura Vandervoort) and a man (Nick Zano) who wins a Santa Claus contest.

Desperately Seeking Santa, stars Laura Vandervoort as a "steely marketing executive" who sets up a contest to search for a "sexy Santa" as part of a marketing ploy for a mall. This puts her life on the path to collide with David (Nick Zano), a guy who wants to win the Sexy Santa contest for the prize money, which could help save his family's restaurant.

I don't mind a by the numbers story but this film doesn't try to be creative. It seems to be on a mission to bore the audience. The acting is okay but the premise is beyond plausible.

I am not sure who this film was made for. Straight women or gay men. However whoever watches this film will be bored. In fact this film works better on people then a sleeping pill!

Every year about this time we can depend on Michael J. Murphy to come up with a story that is a new take on the holiday (' When Angels Come to Town', 'Finding John Christmas' 'A Town Without Christmas', etc) and this year is no exception. With DESPERATELY SEEKING SANTA, his new story for this year, he has taken into consideration the aspects of the economy that just may dampen spirits around Christmas time – falling retail sales needing a boost to stay alive, small businesses facing loss of their family income due to corporate take over of property and subsequent displacement vs. abandonment of dreams, and the lack of Christmas spirit in people who have focused their lives on climbing the corporate ladder instead of cherishing the extended family of friends who have not forgotten the meaning of the season – and found a winning way to restore our confidence that as long as the Christmas spirit is salvaged, miracles can happen!

Jennifer Walker (Laura Vandervoort) is a beautiful and successful executive who runs a mall in Boston, supported by her best friend Marissa Marlet (Paula Brancati) and a host of co-workers who admire her. Jennifer is informed by her boss Edgar Hildreth (Patrick Garrow) that the mall will close and her climb into the corporate world will be thwarted unless she can boost sales during the lucrative holidays. Noting with Marissa that a local fashion store has hired body builders (such as Gavin Fox et al) to meet the ladies, a technique that seems to be increasing sales: the idea of having a Santa Claus who is a hunk rather than the usual jolly fat guy will attract more buying women to the mall and to that end they stage a contest for a hunky Santa. One of the contestants is David Morretti (Nick Zano) a handsome guy who works in his family's pizzeria to make money to attend school: he dreams of becoming a doctor. The Morretti Pizzeria is being threatened with closure to make way for the new corporate buildings (the corporation happens to be run by Jennifer's boss Hildreth). Hearing that the prize for being selected hunky Santa comes with a reward of $10,000. (enough money to fight the corporate takeover of Morreti's Pizzeria), David enters the contest and wins – despite the fact that there appears to be coldness on Jennifer's part (she is dating a corporate type Neal – John Bregar – and finds little time for David's 'excessive humanity'. The promotional gimmick is a huge success and leads to Holiday surprises all around: old perceptions are not immutable and family, sharing, and love change the picture

The movie is light and airy and carries a solid sense of the changes that involvement in the Christmas Spirit can make, even in the Scrooges of the world. The dialogue is snappy and the actors in the cast are a solid group. Murphy's story is so well written that it is able to survive some directorial misjudgments. But as usual stories by Michael J. Murphy make the holidays brighter. Murphy is a writer to watch!

Grady Harp

The Laura Vandervoort and Nick Zano starring characters were excellent. The "Sexy Santa" contest was a creative way to get some great humor and fun dancing into the movie. There was a part near the end where two of the male minor characters set up a date together. This was awkward and was not needed at all. It is small and would not detract from the family watching.