Ivy Donaldson struggles with her mom's shadow, Muriel, the Christmas darling of Icicle Falls. She is now separated from her husband Rob and tries her best with her daughter, but after a seri... Read allIvy Donaldson struggles with her mom's shadow, Muriel, the Christmas darling of Icicle Falls. She is now separated from her husband Rob and tries her best with her daughter, but after a series of strange but comical events everybody gets together in unexpected but festive ways.Ivy Donaldson struggles with her mom's shadow, Muriel, the Christmas darling of Icicle Falls. She is now separated from her husband Rob and tries her best with her daughter, but after a series of strange but comical events everybody gets together in unexpected but festive ways.
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When you have a film where you're relieved when one character isn't in a scene, that's a bad sign. And not because you have a bad guy you don't like but just because the character is constantly annoying.
The whole subplot about "vandalizing candy canes" by moving them around was a non-starter for me. It wasn't serious enough to raise concern, nor funny enough to be amusing.
On the sentimental side, we have divorced parents coming to terms over their daughter and possibly becoming close again and an accused prankster who clearly isn't going to be the culprit.
More than halfway in, I looked over at my wife and said, "At an hour and sixteen minutes into the movie, I'm thinking it should have established SOMETHING I care about." Oops, and just after that Miss Annoying Neighbor walked into another scene to ruin it. We didn't turn it off but probably should have.
I really struggled to see Rob (played by Dan Payne) as a well-rounded and consistent character. If someone had been through a traumatic experience, wouldn't he have at least shown some small amount of nervousness about jumping back in the deep end?
Since this is really built on the past, present and future of the relationship between Rob and Ivy (played by Andrea Barber), it fails to enthrall because the way their relationship evolves is simply implausible. So, all in all, a real dud of a Christmas film.
Overall, it's a decent movie as long as your expectations aren't too high. Just could have been so much better. I'd say the director needs more experience or skill since that's where the cohesion should have come from. Choppy and labored and stilted.
On to the review. I started watching this movie and it just didn't click with me so I stopped watching half an hour into it. I did not delete it from my DVR because I figured I might try watching it the next day, maybe I wasn't enjoying it because I was tired and cranky, well I did start watching it again this afternoon and I ended up really enjoying it.
While the acting wasn't Oscar worthy it was pretty good a few actors were even excellent in their roles.
The messages were clear, it was about family, traditions, friendships, not judging, healing, forgiveness, love, and of course Christmas. Everything was decked out beautifully for Christmas! Loved the Santa dinosaur lol
This movie had romance, humor, and some warm and tender moments, it had me shed a tear or two that's how I know it's a very good movie when it can literally move me to tears! I will definitely watch this again next year. It's definitely worth watching at least once.
I do have a large gripe to pick with IMDB and GAC network. There are 3 African Americans that have huge roles in this movie, they actually had about equal time throughout the movie as the three that are supposedly the main characters but their pictures nor their names are listed anywhere!! I checked here, on the GAC network, online, and even on my DVR nope not listed. That really, really makes me mad! My favorite character and the best actor of the bunch was the Handyman but I don't know what his name is because he's not listed! What is up with that??
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