One Snowy Christmas

The premise is about the family's failing lodge. The two sisters built a snowman and talked about doing a Frosty thing and bringing it to life. Then a guy shows up out of nowhere and helps them. Is it the snowman?

This movie had no highs or lows or surprises. I can't say there was much chemistry between the leads. For one thing, they didn't have enough screen time together. Most of the acting was fair to poor especially the leads. The dialogue was fair to poor. The story was jumbled, especially the situation with the lodge and the involvement of the helper guy. Attempts to build suspense fell flat for me.

Note to self: don't watch this again unless I want a nap.

Have said many times about my love of Christmas and getting a lot of pleasure out of in particular watching films, cartoons and specials during this period, something that most years has been much needed. 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 idea for 'A Snowy Christmas' did sound predictable and not particularly interesting, but still watched for completest sake and Damon Runyan.

Really do have to agree that 'A Snowy Christmas' fell very flat on the whole. There are a few good things but also unfortunately too much bad for me to recommend. As far as Christmas films go, there are certainly far worse out there that fare even worse in the acting and storytelling stakes. There are also a lot better, that have a lot more charm and spark. There have actually been some good Christmas films out there seen in the past four years, so me disliking 'A Snowy Christmas' is not being said with bias.

'A Snowy Christmas' does have good things. Can totally understand why the production values have been criticised for being inauthentic and low budget, but to me the production values still looked attractive in their own way. Very nice scenery.

The ending is quite sweet, even though it is an easily foreseeable one. The best thing about it is Runyan who is very charming and subtly charismatic.

Unfortunately, he is also very underused and his chemistry with Elysia Rotaru suffers from having very little screen time and even less development. It is basically just there but with next to nothing done with it, also found it too bland and distant. The acting on the whole is rough, especially wooden Rotaru and over-compensating Farrah Aviva, the chemistry between them comes over as forced. Which harms the film because that has more screen time than the romantic relationship. The characters are too underdeveloped to be likeable and some like Cheery are annoying, from poorly written and negative decision making being overdone.

Furthermore, the writing is too often stilted and forced especially in the very slow going beginning. The story is predictable throughout and drags in the first act. The lack of realism also hurts it, as well as a couple of the subplots being very muddled, especially the lodge situation and the contrived and too suddenly introduced conflict that is resolved too neatly. The film is very bland, taking itself too seriously to be light hearted and the lack of interesting characters and underwritten storytelling stops it from having any charm or heart. The music is forgettable at best and could have been toned down and the direction is never above routine level.

Concluding, falls flat. 3/10.

A/One Snowy Christmas (2021) -

After about half an hour, I started to wonder if the "Contractor" Forest was ever going to start work. Played by Damon Runyan, he was a nice chap, but clearly hiding something and the flat cap made him look quite old.

Whereas I wasn't bothered about Kelly (Elysia Rotaru) at all.

I did like Chris (Darrell Faria) though, he was a pleasant character, which the moody and otherwise unwelcoming inn needed, because Sheila the Mother (Mary Long) was quite loopy and the Sister, Grace (Farrah Aviva) changed her attitude really quickly. It was a shame that she went off on one actually, because she had been a relatively good character until that point.

But, Oh My God!! Where did they find that terrible child??? Georgie Vaughn as Clare was just awful. I would almost say that her performance was child abuse, but in the way that it used a child to cause abuse like some sort of noise and absolute cringe torture.

Overall the story wasn't bad. It had obviously been done before and it was quite grey and dreary, but it was watchable. It was just a shame that it had so many little flaws.

For instance the dialogue was all very forced and quite inaccurate in some ways, like Forest had never done any home repairs before and was making it up on the spot. The way he worshipped Kelly and her family was a bit too much as well.

And Surely somebody on the props team could have made a REAL snowman with all that snow available. It's so obvious when they use that weird felt and looks ridiculous.

There were also a lot of romantic cliches and I personally wouldn't have wanted her if she got arsey at me without even listening to me anyway. Kelly really was a stroppy cow.

Towards the end it got very sickly sweet to the point that I thought I might get tummy ache or my teeth might rot from my gums. Yay! Redemption for everyone!!!! (Insert rolling side eyes emoji), but I might have found that endearing on another day.

I won't say "Don't watch it", but if you've got something else that you're looking forward to, watch that first.

5.49/10.

More than half of hallmark movies are formulaic and lack depth, this one included. There was no spark that made it believable. Nothing that made me WANT to watch the rest. The plot has been done before. The actors were just okay in their abilities, except for the leading male (Forrest). He was better and needed more lines. Most everyone else was not as natural as they could be. The dialogue and delivery were basic. And there was very little chemistry between the leads. They really didn't have enough screen time together to develop it either.

My biggest gripe with these movies is that there's always a misunderstanding. Then no one communicates to resolve the problem. Instead, they run away or get upset before they even know the truth. The sister (Grace) of the lead female (Kelly) did it to her. And then Kelly did it to Forrest a couple of times. Just hear him out for goodness sake! So now Kelly has all of this drama that could've been avoided.

The last ten minutes was kind of sweet though with the leads. Kelly and Forrest definitely needed more screen time together. I think that would've made the movie much better. This is a one and done for me.

The lead was very unlikable at the beginning and then she grew into it, met Forest (Damon: why I watched it) and their chemistry was quite alright. But then it all went wrong and he was hardly on screen anymore. This wasn't just some misunderstanding, it was evil and almost hate... Very weird story. Really too bad bc the lodge, the lake, the mother, sister, brother in law were all very likable. Not the little girl... Oh boy. Without Damon, I would've stopped watching it.