Debbie Macomber's Joyful Mrs. Miracle

I love Rachel Boston, she is one of my favorite Hallmark Actresses. I knew from the commercial that Hallmark made the right choice casting Rachel as Mrs. Miracle. But I had no idea how right she was until I saw the movie. This movie was so heartwarming and fun. Yes Mrs. Miracle might be a bit over the top and silly but that's how she should be. She was sent to help the family heal and have fun together and apart. And that couldn't be achieved if Mrs. Miracle was boring. Just watch the scene with Cody meeting the horses, and you can see Mrs. Miracle's Christmas magic at work. Christmas is magical and Mrs Miracle brought magic, love, forgiveness and friendship to a family in desperate need of all of those things. Well done!

7.4 stars.

Not exactly sure about the new Miss Miracle although she's OK for the part. Interesting use of the bottomless Mary Poppins bag of tricks. She can reach in her purse, pull out a horse if she wants to. The idea being that she's got magical powers, whether she's an angel or some sort of Mary Poppins, but just makes the movie more interesting for the kids. As for the adults it's just whimsical, silly, but entertaining enough.

A couple of side stories are somewhat shallow, so we don't get to see quite enough development of some of the characters. The younger brother with the financial problems is actually the most interesting of all, even though he's kind of a trouble maker of sorts. Older brother is the studious one, but he likes to travel, see the world. The daughter is the smart one who was in love as a teenager. She is probably the female lead, shared with Miss Miracle, and it's somewhat unorthodox. Now she has the opportunity to fall in love with the same guy 20 or so years later. But once upon a time she was married and now has a young autistic boy, who appears to be on the fringe of the spectrum. There's a lot going on with the story, that's what I'm trying to say, there's a bit too much happening, too many directions.

For 2024 Hallmark gives us one more installment in the saga of Mrs. Miracle. The original two, with Doris Roberts, did, indeed, have some magic. The choice of the actress for the role, Rachel Boston, seems well justified. In the 2017 movie "Christmas in Angel Falls", she convincingly played an angel, projecting the feeling of inner mirth and wholesomeness with levity and restraint. I am not sure whether seven years have changed her so much, or the script and movie direction have made the difference. In this movie, her performance appears uneven and somewhat hollow. She wanders between acting frantically silly ( again, the recent Hallmark penchant for making a farce of everything), rather than joyous, and somberly serious. She gets involved in other people's lives almost forcefully, rather than nudging, and talks too much, leading people rather than hinting. She seems in command of the action, rather than in a gentle advisory capacity. In essence, the angel has lost her joy and Mrs. Miracle has lost her magic. The rest of the story is bland, with characters that sound superficial, with no psychological consistency, and predictable outcomes, though not well constructed by the action.. Is it a bad movie? Not really. It is watchable, with some values and Christmas spirit, but it is half-baked and poorly inspired. Once more, I feel that somebody at Hallmark has lost the ability to really feel the Christmas spirit and just goes through the motions, probably pressed by the need to produce volumes of movies, rather than caring for quality and substance.

If you start this movie thinking that Rachel Boston might be a decade or two too young to play the titular Mrs Miracle but the happiest and bubbliest of all the Hallmark actresses will have you reassessing that about five minutes in. She is fantastic. Not Doris Roberts quality - but, honestly, who is? - but very, very close. She takes the role and makes it her own with a blend of humour, joy and whimsy.

Sent to put a fractured family back together, Mrs Miracle has a lot of work to do, and she does it with aplomb. There's gooey Hallmark Christmas sentimentality by the truckload here...and it works.

One of 2024's best.

One of Hallmark's best, full stop.

A worthy entry in the Mrs Miracle franchise. Here's hoping there will be many more.

I like Rachel Boston in other Hallmark movies, but she wasn't the right fit for Mrs. Miracle. Seems like she was just being too kooky, then too serious. Maybe it was the writing for her character. I like the story with the three brothers, not so much the love story with the sister, that one didn't feel developed at all. I liked the fact Mrs. Miracle was an older lady, not sure why they went this direction. I never read any of the books so maybe I'm off. This one didn't make my cut for 2024 Christmas Hallmark, but so far only one other one has. Each year I have fewer and fewer favorites that I add to my yearly watch list.