Chocolate Covered Christmas

Has Malone Thomas taken ANY acting lessons ??? she was just blandly script reading - no passion - no acting - no facial expressions, nothing. The rest of the cast were almost as bad, - long pauses between lines. If this is the best that the casting director can get, even for a minor movie channel then Hollywood really is in trouble.

Please Hallmark, before casting, make sure the actors/actresses are up to a good standard of actual acting !

Christmas films can go either way, which has been my experience watching overtime the festive output of Lifetime, Hallmark and UPTV. They can either be well-meaning, charming, warm-hearted and don't feel too heavy. Or they can be too over-sentimental, cheesy, contrived and bland. There have been many films of theirs that have fallen in both camps and in the camp where there is a bit of both. 'My Sweet Holiday' in all honesty didn't appeal and did sound like one of the latter category films when reading the premise.

Lifetime's 2020 Christmas output didn't wow me and was a very mixed bag, but there were some surprisingly good films and the overall standard considering the circumstances could have been a lot worse. There were still misfires though (i.e. 'Christmas in the Highlands', 'Christmas Listing'/'Christmas Inn Farmstead'), and sadly 'My Sweet Holiday' is on the whole one of those misfires. It has good things, it takes a lot for me to say that anything film or television related has no redeeming merits, but there are also a lot of flaws and unfortunately the issues are big.

Am going to begin with the good things. It is a pleasant looking film, a lot of care and effort went into the photography and the festive decor and the scenery is more than easy on the eye. The music also has the right amount of festive spirit and is pleasant to listen to without being exceptional, it doesn't sound over-scored like Lifetime films can be.

'My Sweet Holiday' is a case of the supporting cast being much better than the leads. Patty Lambert and Remi Hilson gave very engaging, honest performances, just loved the warm hearted and adorable father and daughter scenes between Hilson and Jason Burkey. Burkey's performance is uneven, but he is incredibly charming in the family scenes.

It did take a bit of time to warm to him properly, for most of the first act he seemed too cold and uptight. He is certainly much better than Malone Thomas, who is just awful in a very wooden and expressionless performance and calling it either of those things is actually generous. It was like she had done the film for a favour and had started to regret it when it was too late, so decided not to try. She and Burkey have absolutely no chemistry whatsoever, one never feels the love and the passion for chocolate is not believable on either end because both looked so unenthusiastic about it. The only chemistry that rang believable in the film was between Burkey and Hilson.

Really didn't care for most of the characters, who are typical Lifetime cliche ciphers on the most part. Hilson's is the one with the most heart, but Burkey's took time to warm to when it took time for Burkey to ease into the role and Thomas' had no personality. Found the boyfriend character very unnecessary and his role in the story forced in rushed in development, also not making sense later on. The film could have done a much better job fleshing out of character motivations, which aren't really fleshed out at all. Any attempts are vague at best, introduced too suddenly and only touched upon too briefly, some of them in the latter stages don't make sense. Which was a major problem with the too unrealistically pat and fantasy land-like ending, while the coda is sickly and tacked on.

The script is far too cheesy and schmaltzy and doesn't flow very well at all, not feeling like everyday conversation. The story is severely under-baked, especially in the final act, and is dully paced and with very little emotional connection. Also found that it jumped about structurally, with too many things happening where one questions why has this happened which gave the impression that things that were meant to be in the film were left on the editing room floor. Not to mention the excessive predictability, very familiar scenarios executed in such a mundane been there done that with no originality way.

In conclusion, very lacklustre. 4/10.

The story is totally based on the formula where mom and dad are selling the business Sadie grew up to love. But it's like the formula got lost in translation from another language. The elements are obvious, but so many things don't flow right. They don't make sense.

It starts out fine. I liked that Sadie not only didn't get fired, but she wasn't under any pressure from her boss. All the pressure was her own disappointment. Immediately her jerk of a boyfriend calls her and tells her he is too busy to join her for Christmas. At that point, Sadie is done with him. Then mom and dad drop the bombshell. And Sadie accidentally runs into Alex, the new owner, without knowing it's him. Then she has to train him. They grow closer together. Sadie meets Francie the daughter and of course they hit it off. And Sadie has to plan a big party on short notice and a snowstorm throws a wrench in her plans. All good. It's totally by the numbers, but it's going as the viewer would expect..

Then things get strange. There's the usual misunderstanding, but that's treated like a tiny blip. The ex-boyfriend comes into play, but why? The way it's done is totally pointless and the screen time would have been better used smoothing out the climax. The climax is a total cluster. The outcome is predictable, but it makes no sense how it gets there. As another reviewer points out, the character development explaining certain things is totally lacking. All of a sudden, the characters are just there. The epilogue is another thing that seems pointless - the way it's done, it's almost pointless. But then maybe it's artsy.

The acting is mostly good. Malone Thomas and Jason Burkey have mixed chemistry, but mostly it's good.

I struggled a bit with this one. I found it difficult to connect with both the story and acting at times. Put simply, it did not pull me in, engage me, like some of the other Lifetime Christmas movies this 2020 season. At the center of this story is Sadie (played by Malone Thomas), who heads home for Christmas to visit her family after her boyfriend blows her off for the holidays. To her surprise, her parents have sold the family Chocolate business to Alex (our other protagonist in this story, played by Jason Burkey). Sadie agrees to teach him everything she knows about chocolate and being a chocolatier, something growing up Sadie always dreamed about becoming. While showing him the ropes, Sadie soon rediscovers her talent and passion for making chocolate while, at the same time, begins to fall in love with Alex. Unfortunately, the story falls flat. The writer could have done a better job of developing the characters in the story; they were quite dull individuals, I'm afraid. Alex, who knows nothing about making chocolate, buys a chocolate business. Really? The backstory we are given for explaining this is rather weak (not very convincing, that is). Indeed, we don't learn very much about Alex in this story, so it is hard to connect with his character, even though he has an adorable daughter. The writer too could have done a better job of developing Sadie's passions for chocolate, for taking over the business. We don't really see this 'rediscovery' develop on screen. Granted, this is partly due to the acting, but also due to a lack of character development in the script. The obsession with the gingerbread houses for the party, which consumed much of the second half of the film, seemed strange and did not help in this regard. That said, I did enjoy the lesson on chocolate truffles, a pity there was not more of this in the movie. The acting, overall, could have been better. Malone Thomas's performance was mixed. There were several scenes where she fell flat; i.e., she wasn't very expressive at times. And I never really felt her passion for chocolate on screen, as I alluded to above. She did have some very good scenes with Francie and Alex. Jason Burkey's performance was decent. For the first 30 minutes or so, I found it difficult to connect with his character. For example, he seemed uninterested in learning about chocolate from Sadie in these earlier scenes, which seemed odd given he was buying the business. I did enjoy the scenes and dialogue with his daughter; his face lit right up in these scenes. I thought the chemistry between the two was mixed; they had some good and not so good moments/scenes/dialogue together. The supporting cast was solid. I thought Patty Lambert (playing Carol, Sadie's mother) had a strong, convincing performance. And Remi Hilson (playing Francie, the daughter) was adorable; she did great, I thought. Finally, the scenery, props, and sets were quite charming and festive. I thought the music was bold at times but good. All in all, the movie is all right. It is not one of Lifetime's best this year nor is it one of their worse. If you are a fan of Lifetime Christmas movies, then it might be worth a watch.

As many people have already stated, the leading lady was...painful to watch. Not sure how this particular actress got the part but I'm convinced a piece of wood would have been more convincing. (Maybe that's why she's so pouty/mopey throughout). The leading man met typical hallmark standard, though given the ability of his love interest chemistry would have been more convincing with said piece of wood. The little girl who played his daughter - well, I'm not going to be mean but it was not great. Was she cute? Yeah. Apparently that was the only requirement.

Typical hallmark plot, entirely predictable but somehow still unpleasant.