Like some of the other reviewers on here, I struggled to get thru this Lifetime Christmas movie, especially the first 30 minutes or so. The story centers around Erin (played by Stephanie Bennett), a widowed mother of two daughters, who (thru some encouragement from a friend/family) decides to spend Christmas with her estranged father on his Texas ranch. In addition to working thru her troubles and issues with her father, Erin meets Mateo (our other protagonist in this story, played by Marco Grazzini), a local Mexican restaurant owner. Are forgiveness and love on the cards for Erin this Christmas? The premise of the story is a warm and heartfelt one. Unfortunately, the script is rather weak at times. The sub-plot set around Erin and her father (played by Brent Stait) is the weak link in this story. The script/dialogue here is not very convincing, and the writers don't spend enough time setting up the difficulties between the two for the viewer. As a result, this sub-plot is quite dull and difficult to believe overall. Granted, it is challenging to do everything in a TV movie of only 85 minutes. What makes this sub-plot even more problematic is the quality of the acting (which I discuss below). That said, the story does start to improve about 40 minutes into the film, beginning with the scene immediately after the fruitcake at Erin's parents' place (the one where the two have dialogue in front of the house). In the second half of the film, the dialogue between the two, Erin and Mateo, and the development of their relationship is what keeps this movie afloat, I felt. More specifically, it was the performance of Grazzini (as Mateo) that shines thru in this movie. He had a strong performance, I thought. He had a warm and gentle vibe to his performance, which made for good chemistry. The chemistry between him and Bennett (as Erin) was pretty good, quite believable, I felt. The strongest scenes in the film were the dialogue and exchanges between the two and the ones with the kids as well. However, Bennett had a mixed performance, as her dialogue with her father was often awkward and not very convincing on screen, unfortunately. Stait too was quite weak/awkward in these scenes. They should have given more lines to BJ Harrison; she was quite good. Finally, the movie does provide some holiday cheer and Christmas spirit in the latter half of the film. The music is also quite good, with some nice country (or country like) music. All in all, it is not a very good Christmas movie. However, if you can get thru the first 40 minutes or so, the second half is decent.
