The Most Colorful Time of the Year

Michelle is an optometrist who suspects her daughter's teacher might be color blind and makes it her mission to help him.

I appreciate Hallmark for giving us new plots, different than the usual, I also appreciate giving the characters any condition or disability since human beings are not perfect.

While the premise of this movie was interesting it could have been made better. The beginning was very boring for me and I thought of turning it off. The there is the scientific aspect of the movie: color blindness isn't seeing in black and white but according to this, it is. In fact, one type of this condition is mixing red and green and I thought that could have worked better given it is a Christmas movie.

I like that Ryan is discovering and enjoying Christmas like it's a brand new thing. But then there is the misunderstanding at the end of the movie. I thought we were passed that with these movies. And don't even get me started with Michelle's ex, red flags everywhere. I thought the leads were okay but they had little to no chemistry and the script didn't help either.

Anyway, not a bad plot, it was simply poorly executed. I would have changed a few details.

This is one of the most driest Christmas movies I have ever seen. I get the storyline but the entire film is so lackluster, and feels forced. I have nothing against the characters but it feels like they're trying too hard to make the entire film convincing, let alone the storyline. It's a film you'll watch one time and forget about it because it's just not solid enough, even with a few cute elements. Those elements feel forced, too.

Christmas movies, generally speaking, is meant to give you the holiday feels, I get that, but it's also cheesy and unrealistic. It forces us to believe that everyone is giving, helpful, more specifically, around Christmas time, and that there is always some handsome prince out there waiting to sprinkle his magic by accident to someone unsuspecting, and fall in love. Total cliché for sure. Anyway, circling back, this film is a solid 5/10 for me. It's nice but only for one night.

The type of color blindness in this film, where the person cannot see ANY colors, is called monochromacy. It's extremely rare, and no special glasses are going to allow the person to see color. They MAY allow for greater separation of shades. This type of medical misinformation could only give false hope to people who've suffered from that condition since birth.

So I docked stars for that.

My wife otherwise liked the movie more than I did, as she got into his resistance to admit the condition or seek help for it. Parts of the movie were quite emotional, those mostly having to do with his prospects for treatment and then the (false) results of getting the "special glasses".

The romance part, however, was pretty standard, with the misinterpretations of past or friendly relationships. It's not worth a rewatch for me since I didn't buy into the optometry, and not worth a rewatch for my wife because even though it moved her, most of the suspense involved when and why he'd admit his condition and agree to be examined, and that's no mystery on subsequent viewings.

This is an unusual premise. The usual Christmas activities in this movie seem limited to a pageant and Christmas decorations, the latter for obvious reasons. The persistence of Michelle and her daughter, Bailey, lead to tension that isn't romantic for over half the movie. The ploy by Bailey is cute and changes the tone to be more Christmas like.

No matter how accurate is the representation of what Ryan sees, the movie works to capture the wonder he experiences. I do question how accurate the science of it is especially given that during the premiere on Hallmark, there is a commercial for corrective glasses. Is it irony that Ryan is a science teacher? I couldn't find anything conclusive in a simple internet search, but what I saw led me to believe that the actual experience is not as pure especially if Ryan's case was extreme as Michelle stated.

And Mark!? What is with his request that leads to the misunderstanding? Why in the world would Michelle agree?

The acting is OK. The dialogue is ok with a few good moments. Given the relatively small amount of screen time spent by Michelle and Ryan when things are good, it is hard to say there is much chemistry between Katrina Bowden and Christopher Russel or why the characters would feel so strongly.

Some viewers may find this made for TV Christmas film a bit corny, and some may consider (the teacher named) Ryan Tanner's handicap an insult to people who may be legally blind. A lot of people may be color blind to different extremes and not consider themselves to be handicapped which Mr. Tanner and his girlfriend Optometrist, Michelle Stevens, was making a bigger deal about his handicap than I would have expected. Dr. Stevens suggesting that Mr. Tanner entertain the idea of joining a medical test group for his color blindness and him being stubborn and trying, when all it included was trying on a new pair of eyeglasses you may understand why I think they blew out of proportion his handicap. I believe the message the producers were genuinely attempting to convey to their audience was for people not to be afraid to accept assistance and/or suggestions that may significantly improve their health. Whether that handicap may be a severe disability or something less obtrusive such as being color blind.

Just an observation about this film and please not to be critical a Mrs. Shullivan and I quite enjoyed this film. I am glad they did not show Mr. Tanner behind the wheel of a car as he would not have been able to distinguish between a red light or a green traffic light.

I give the film a wishy washy 5 out of 10 IMDb rating as I can see how some people may enjoy the romantic undertone and then others may be insulted with Mr. Tanner overcoming his color blindness by simply putting on a new pair of glasses. Duhhhh.