A Match Made at Christmas

Holly Everton has watched her great aunt make perfect matches for people all her life. But never for her. Small town, works at a fishing shop, dreams of travel and finding her perfect match. Her brother is home for his Christmas wedding, and he brings his college roommate along to be best man. He dislikes romance, she dreams of the perfect wedding, he can't stand Christmas, she loves it, in short, they don't like each other. He's rude & she's a people pleaser; it's not a good look. But it's what you expect in romance, right?

I like that the people look like real people and the houses look like real family houses, and the shop (the fishing part, not the Christmas side) looks like a real shop. The widowed mom looks like a good age for a widowed mom. The great aunt is suitably aged. The decorations are a bit over the top everywhere but that's just par for the Christmas movie scene.

The second-half turns into a much deeper movie in the first half was setting up (though not well), which may be partly responsible for all the bad reviews. The romance is hard won & the characters both have some growing up to do. Hers is all on screen while his is just a brief grumpy montage with no particular motivation except enough time passes that he's not mad any more.

This film ends up asking some real questions about helping versus taking over, what you owe to your family and your friendships, and living your life for and through other people instead of for yourself.

This movie is full of selfish, mean horrible characters who treat the leading female character in a horrible manner. The sister in law is selfish and the male lead is abusive.

I enjoyed the music.

Otherwise I found it difficult to watch because the leads were so unlikable. I mean, the young lady was pleasant but I just could not believe that somebody as intelligent and capable as she was supposed to be would be so completely fixated on falling in love. The male lead was intolerable.

I would not be spoken to the way that young man spoke to women; I hope to raise my daughter so that she would not be spoken to that way. I'm not qualified to say whether it was abusive or simply extremely disrespectful but the red flags are all over the place.

First, they throw way too many of the generic movie plot points in. It's like a mash up/rip off of several different movies jammed into one.

Second, the male lead is a complete ahole. The look in his eyes when he's telling the old woman off was genuinely chilling. I actually turned it off at that point. I understand he hasn't grown up with love in his life. I understand he has issues. But the real message the movie should have sent is that he needs to deal with those on his own before entering into a serious relationship. Very disturbing that many people see this as ok and think she should be expected to fix him. She deserved better.

There was zero connection between the leads and too many red flags already. It really was painful to watch so I had to accelerate the speed of the movie and skip some parts so it ends quicker. The girl was nice but the main character was just too rude and wooden. Like, come on, he didn't have to be super nice to everyone, but just some basic politeness and not being a douchebag, please.

Also it's suspicious to see so many 10* reviews, especially considering that almost for all of these commenters it's an only review hmmmm

All in all, would NOT recommend and if you think the main male character's attitude is ok and romantic I'v got some bad news for you (and better run it by your psychologist)