Five Gold Rings

I watched this for Holland Roden, who was so good in Time to Come Home a couple years back. She has an endearing quality about her.

Here she plays Audrey, an artist of some note who returns home after her grandmother passes, only to be sent on a quest to return 5 rings her grandmother found beachcombing.

To assist her in her task she enlists the aid of Finn, a private investigator, played by Nolan Gerard Funk.

I was about 30 minutes in when it occurred to me Funk reminded me of a smart-ass, murderous kid in one of the first episodes of Castle. Checked his bio and sure enough, it was him.

He has a lot of credits for a guy who acts like Spock.

One thing that stood out to me in this movie was the almost complete lack of familiar faces among the supporting cast. I guess there's been an exodus to another channel.

Along the way snowmen are built, office supplies are turned into Christmas decorations and art is created. People are appropriately thankful when their baubles are returned.

Nothing out of the ordinary for a Hallmark movie, but still pretty forgettable.

Five.

The storyline involves yet another quest that has to be solved. An artist, Aubrey Moss, (Holland Roden)comes home for Christmas and her mother tells her that her deceased grandmother's will left Aubrey five gold rings and five mysteries that must be solved before Christmas morning. The grandmother also left instructions for Aubrey to team up with Private Investigator, Finn O'Sullivan (Nolan Gerard Funk). I like that the plot is a little bit different, but like most Hallmark movies still predictable. The movie does sort of drag in the middle, but the stories surrounding each ring are interesting. I like Holland Roden and hope she appears in more Hallmark movies. She brings an upbeat and inquisitive nature to her character. Some reviewers have complained about Noland Funk's Spock like personality, but I find him to be in the Ryan Paevey acting style, more of the unemotional types, which did fit his Private Investigator character. The two leads did have good chemistry together. Overall, its not a ground breaking movie, but it's a pleasant diversion that's watchable.

I must confess that over the years my wife and I have watched more Hallmark movies than we can count. Most of them are Christmas movies followed by mystery movies. The storyline of this one is a bit different and overall, pretty good. The cast isn't picked from the same pool of actors as they usually are. That said the male lead actor sounded like Spock - his voice was very monotone, and he had very little facial expression. The Santa had a few too many "Ho Ho Ho's". And of course it wouldn't be a Hallmark movie without the typical, ridiculous "deal breaker" which usually happens about 15 minutes before the ending.

I tried to like this movie. I really did. I'm a fan of Holland Roden, but the guy they got for her love interest was awful. His tone was monotonous, he had basically NO facial expressions and his eyes looked dead. It was like he was reading his lines behind his eyes. It was hard to like him and because I couldn't like him, I wasn't interested in the story. He made it boring. Every other actor had personality, but his was like rice cake. Some parts of the directing was kinda dumb, for instance, the desk scene. The close-ups there were totally unnecessary. Sorry Hallmark, but you dropped the ball on this one. You might want to send Nolan Funk for some acting lessons. I don't think he would've survived "Finding Mr. Christmas".

Cute movie topic, but it was like sitting through two hours of fingers screaching down a chalk board. Actor playing Audrey ruined the movie with her annoying vocal fry through the film. The low pitch screeching voice was so distracting. There is no reason to deliver their dialogue with vocal fry. Sometimes, couldn't even understand what she was saying, because her voice was so strained. Why do they do this?! It's not entertaining, it's annoying, and just makes you not want to watch anything they are in. The director should notice this during filming and announce, "o.k., enough of the vocal fry, just talk in a normal voice!"