jayneau

It's fairly obvious that the main purpose of this movie is to declare once and for all that Miley is no longer Hannah Montana. Actually, this role is the anti-Hannah Montana. An amateurish ode to teenage angst, it has every high school stereotype and trope you could think of, with no apparent purpose. Weird from the beginning, when 'Lol' comes home from school and Mom and 10-year-old-ish sister are taking a bath together and Lol proceeds to undress in front of them to take a shower. Huh?? There's the usual boy troubles, but taken to a laughable extreme. This movie is all over the place, with no discernable plot or purpose except to launch the new era of Miley Minus Hannah. Full disclosure: I gave up after one hour. It was just soooooo bad.

Why on earth would you even try to redo/imitate an iconic show like The Waltons? There's no point, especially when the end result is mediocre at best. The only way A Waltons Thanksgiving works is if you know nothing whatsoever about the original show, or better yet, never even heard of it. And you'd also have to know absolutely nothing about the Great Depression and its grinding poverty; segregation and the Jim Crow south; rural farm life; social hierarchy; and just life in general in the mid-1930s. It was no happy-go-lucky picnic back then.

The acting in this movie is average at best, with occasional scenery-chewing by Bellamy Young (Olivia). But then Patricia Neal and Michael Learned are very tough acts to follow.

The dialogue in this movie was also way off, at times much more 2022 than 1934. The clothes were too bright and spiffy. In 1934, no rural farm family would waste pumpkins to decorate a porch. They'd be pureed and canned for winter or stored in the root cellar. Food was not for decoration. And in the mountains of Virginia, is it really warm enough in late November to eat Thanksgiving dinner outside in short sleeved clothes?

These may seem like nit-picky observations, but to a true Waltons fan, they matter. Hence, this movie would be best targeted to a Waltons newbie.

Very disappointing.

Good acting, lousy story & script. I think the actors did the best they could with a really boring, nearly nonexistent storyline. I mean, this is really bad. The story was hard to follow, maybe because there was none or maybe because I just didn't care. It didn't draw me in at all. I wonder if it was written in one night on a drunken dare. I almost gave up on it after 1/2 hour, but then stuck with it out of morbid curiosity. No, it never got better or even developed. Kudos to the actors for putting the best face possible on this stinker. I give it 6 stars for the acting, 0 stars for the story/script. C'mon, Lifetime. Step up your game.