Christmas Babysitter - Dad auf Probe

I watch a ton of Christmas movies (Hallmark, Lifetime, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu etc) and rank them on letterboxd. The UK movie "Christmas Number One" has been my top ranked movie for about 5 weeks now (out of 64 new movies so far this year).

Welp, it was just knocked off it's spot by THE HOLIDAY SITTER. I love this movie! I was looking forward to it as Hallmark's first Christmas movie featuring a gay lead couple. It didn't disappoint. It's light and funny and genuine with two gorgeous and sweet leads who have electric chemistry together.

The plot is a fish-out-of-water story about a guy who is roped into babysitting his neice and nephew for a few days before Christmas due to a family emergency. He has no idea what to do with kids but, fortunately, the hot guy next door loves children and is willing to lend a hand.

There's comedy, romance, and some genuine family feels. I loved the character arc of the lead who goes from "I never want to get married or have kids" to falling for the guy *and* the kids and family life. There's a moving discussion he has with his sister about the queen experience.

The script is quite good, but it's the leads who make this special. Thank you, Hallmark, Jonathan Bennett, and George Krissa for making this landmark movie so beautiful.

This movie had such wit and a minimal amount of the usual "Hallmarky" tropes, I almost had to check and see if I fell by accident into Netflix!

Jonathan Bennett is charming as all-get-out. As Executive Producer, I am assuming he got the script he wanted, which is well above the average for the Hallmark Machine. And he is clearly very invested in what he is doing. Of course, the usual things happen--a near-kiss at the one-hour mark and a misunderstanding at the one hour forty-five minutes mark, etc. But, this one has a distinct lack of cheese and the usual overstuffed silliness.

The Gay angle really works here, as opposed to some other films they make when they try to shoehorn Gay characters into one of their usual plots (listen to a podcast by the brilliant Bobby Leiber for more on this topic) and expect it to work. But, as this film is set in the NYC Metro it is very plausible that their romance could bloom in a friendly, accepting environment. Honestly, I was watching this with the intention of having an amusing "Hate Watch," but was pleasantly surprised. HALLMARK: Keep on breaking that cookie cutter with which you make WAY too many movies. Doing something different might engage more viewers!

Great movie - not just a great Hallmark movie - not just a great Christmas movie - great movie, period. I'm a straight guy who likes Hallmark movies, and I thought this one was terrific. Well-acted and directed, funny, uplifting, and a Christmas story to boot. Happy for the representation it gave to our fellow humans. I liked the multiple storylines also, very well done. Hallmark has done a great job this year of making really good movies that differ from their standard tropes or themes - especially this year's Christmas movies. Criticism of this movie based on hate or ignorance is not Christian, and not WJWD.

I really liked the Holiday Sitter. The 2 leads are great together. I love Jonathan Bennet and all that he is in. The other lead was new to me. It's sort of your typical set up on most Hallmark movies. We've seen this done before but this was a different twist on 2 leading men being gay. The comedic antics of Jonathan's character could be a little over the top an times but it didn't rub me the wrong way. He's your typical commitment phobic man while the other one is having hard time finding anyone. He wants a family so he is starting to adopt. The script was well written. I would definitely recommend.

Gay Sam (Jonathan Bennett) agrees to babysit his niece and nephew around Christmas while his sister and her husband go to pick up a baby they adopted. He has a little trouble with the kids so he asks for help from the next door neighbor Jason (George Krissa). Turns out Jason is gay also and, as he helps Sam, they become attracted to each other. However Jason wants kids and Sam doesn't.

Utterly predictable but sweet movie. It's VERY G rated but it's colorful and has a good cast. Bennett and Krissa play off each other very well although Bennett has a tendency to overact at times. Still I applaud that we finally have a gay rom-com! Also there are two nice kisses between the guys at the end :) No great shakes but sweet.