Coup de foudre à l'auberge de Noël

I've seen my fair share of bad Christmas movies over the years, but B&B Merry takes the cake for being amongst the worst I've ever seen. From its cringe-inducing acting to its nonsensical plot, this movie is a disaster from start to finish. The acting is truly terrible. The actors are all wooden and unconvincing, and their delivery of the lines is laughable, especially the older ladies. The dialogue is also incredibly cheesy and forced, making it even harder to take the movie seriously. It's as if the screenwriters didn't even bother to try to come up with a plausible story.

Overall, B&B Merry is a complete waste of time. It's not funny, and it's not even remotely entertaining. If you're looking for a good Christmas movie to watch, avoid this one at all costs.

The mind actually boggles at how many of these cheap, soft-soap Christmas TV romance movies the channels can churn out.

With my wife, I've now watched three in a row of this type and the characters and plots seem interchangeable in every one. An attractive young woman, usually from the city with a nerdy / emotionless boyfriend, finds an excuse to go to the country at Christmas time where she invariably 1) helps the local community in some way, 2) finds herself but only after overcoming a minor setback or source of confusion in her life and 3) naturally finds love with a handsome, single local man who brings out the country girl in her so that she can reject that mean old city with its fast, shallow lifestyle.

This one sees travel blogger Jen Lilley end up in Smalltown, Vermont just in time for the Christmas holidays. She's been invited there by a down-on-its-luck bed and breakfast property run by a widow, her older sister and, you guessed it, her handsome, single son. Only trouble is, she's already been hired by a major magazine to favourably review a big hotel in the same town, which is killing the prospects of the homely little B and B. Conveniently, on her very first day in the town, her current boyfriend dumps her. So what do you think are the chances of her turning around the fortunes of the little establishment, rediscovering her moral compass and naturally, fall for her soulmate-in-waiting, who just happens to be the eligible son of the bed and breakfast proprietor? Well, does Santa have a big white beard?

My wife and I had a lot of fun guessing the plot developments well in advance of their actually occurring, in fact you could extend that anticipation to actual lines of dialogue.

With lots of lingering, soft focus camera work, dialogue straight out of a batch of assorted Christmas cards and some sappy incidental seasonal music trilling away in the background, this is another one for the Hallmark set, although I must say, even my wife is starting to weary of these almost identical productions from which you can't seem to escape at this time of year.

From the moment I saw who the two leads were, I knew it would this would an enjoyable movie. The two lead actors are top notch and I recognize them from previous viewing. I really like Jen Lilley. She is delightful and so pretty. I mean really so very Interesting to watch ! I have seen Jesse Hutch in other things and he's definitely a good actor because he's got range and he doesn't play the same character twice like some of the more typical ham and cheese leading men do. The plot is nothing new . Another typical love story with Christmas as just the back drop. Normally these bore me to tears. The plot is very predictable. However, the great acting makes up for it. It's well paced and the scenery is great. I will probably watch it again.

7.5 stars.

I wasn't smiling much watching this installment of a Christmas family Hallmark romance genre... What we have in this story is a woman who does travel blogs, she visits hotels and B&B's and motels and all those places where people get lodged up. She has traveled all over the world and has a fairly popular website. Two competitors land on her docket so she has to compare them simultaneously. One is a small town family B&B and the other is the competition, a major large chain hotel in the same town, not known for charm, caters to wealthy and such. She is conflicted and falling in love with the owner of the B&B's son, and there we have the usual Hallmark/Family production.

The acting is very good, the drama is serious, the feelings are real. I like this sort of story, I don't need all the fluff and smiles. This type of movie works for me, albeit it's not making me ecstatic edge of my seat happy, but I'm entertained and satisfied. I like it when these two leads are serious, they are very good at portraying these emotions. Pleasantly surprised.

The plot isn't new ... a travel reviewer arrives at a property (in this case a struggling B&B) which needs some good publicity to combat the business they're losing to the new hotel in town.

Of course, the reviewer comes with secrets. Her boyfriend--who was supposed to come to the town and stay with her--just dumped her, and she's ALSO supposed to review the new hotel.

In my mind, the first 3/4ths of the movie was better than the end, as it had all the secrets and angst and meetings and funny awkward moments. But that doesn't mean we didn't enjoy the movie. It also has what all these movies need and not all provide ... legitimate relationship building scenes and enough of them.

Recommended, and we'll watch again.