Une histoire éternelle pour Noël

'Christmas Bedtime Stories' (2022)

Opening thoughts: This is being said with a very heavy heart. Actually really liked the premise, that and Hallmark completest sake bring my main reasons for watching, which sounded very sweet and heartfelt. Have liked Erin Cahill and Steve Lund elsewhere, though their performances and films do vary. Wanted to see some more festive films that were more recent, lower in budget and were not childhood favourites, so in a way to broaden my horizons and have been doing so since November 2019.

The second 2022 Miracles of Christmas film ''Christmas Bedtime Stories' (cute title) was really disappointed and just didn't deliver in most areas. Although there are two massive common criticisms cited against the film in other reviews, to me there were more problems than just those two. 'Christmas Bedtime Stories' was not a complete shambles, but compared to the previous 2022 Miracles of Christmas films it really underwhelmed.

Good things: Cahill and Lund are more than game in their roles and give it their all. In fact, in general the acting was fine.

The film is well filmed and looks attractive. There are moments of charm.

Bad things: Unfortunately, 'Christmas Bedtime Stories' has too many failings to recommend. The story is well meaning, but is for my tastes too sentimentality heavy and over-stretched and has too much draggy pacing and too much coming out of nowhere. The script can be too corny and could have done with a real tightening up momentum wise, a lot of talk here and not all of it necessary.

While Cahill and Lund are fine individually, the former suffers from her character being very difficult to root for and the latter has far too little to do so is wasted. The central chemistry is never fleshed out properly and is underused. The characters are too sketchy and there is too little to them to care about them enough. The music is drab and needed more variety and the direction plods.

Do agree with everybody else with the two things that ruin the film. The representation of the military is truly insultingly inept and indicative of someone who didn't appreciate what they do. Worse is the very rushed, introduces out of nowhere and idiotic ending that makes no sense whatsoever.

Concluding thoughts: All in all, weak.

3/10.

I really wanted to like this movie. Erin Cahill and Steve Lund were good, but the script was awful. The attention to military detail was lacking. Was Colby a Major or a Captain? The General was not even aware of the most important detail. How he didn't know one of his men was alive was beyond me. I felt so bad for Pierce. He loved her and her daughter so much. The flashback scenes were probably the best part of the movie. The ending happened so quickly and was not believable at all. How you wrap up a movie in the last five minutes is just silly. Will not be rewatching this. I gave it 3 stars for just Erin and Steve.

First, did not care for ending. Second, during the first part of movie it showed husband with a rank of Major. Later when they showed him online talking to to his wife, they showed him with captain bars on. That's right before he was supposed to be killed. WHAT, did he get a demotion? If your going to have some sort of Military movie, then it should be acurate. I'm x-military, and it hurts to think Hallmark would not check facts. We are watching the end now, and he has captain bars on. It's sad to think that Hallmark would let this happen, and that the good actors and actresses had to be in it.

This movie had potential until 1 hour 15 minutes into it, with The acting was good, but the characters lacked depth. The first half of the movie had a story line and kept viewers interested, while the second half was dragging and felt that it was simply a filler to complete 120 minutes.

The incredible and ridiculous ending was so unbelievable that I consider this a loss of 2 hours of my life, which I will never get back. The last 5 minutes doesn't complete this movie and attempts to explain everything,without any logic or credibility. All it does is to make the viewers frustrated and disappointed.

We're two women who love the fluffy predictable Hallmark Christmas movies normally, as a break from the stressful real world and even the other kind of shows we watch and also love with plenty of action, violence, sex, etc. But this one ends in a ridiculous out of the blue way that destroys the whole story of the movie. It also makes no sense for how things work in the world. It's a complete fantasy ending far in excess of the bit of romantic fantasy we allow for in a Hallmark movie. It left us frustrated and wishing we had watched something else. Skip this one. Plenty of other Hallmark movies this year, (and Lifetime, Netflix, UpTV!)