Flipping for Christmas

I didn't really expected much from this movie but I have watched the lead actress in other movies and found her to be tolerable. So I got my popcorn and settled in for some basic entertainment. And it was basic and totally predictable; well how many times have we seen the fixer upper romance plot?

I think so far in this season of Hallmark movies this is the second movie I have watched where the characters are fixing old houses. The other movie had a ghost living in the house so at least that added a new dimension. No ghost here except for the missing originality in the plot. Basic movie with basic characters delivering basic performance.

Abigail is tasked by her sister to "flip" a house his husband half inherited and sell it, there she meets Bo, who inherited the other half of the property. Problem is both have different intentions about what to do with the house and Abigail somehow has to fix that.

First things first, I'm now finding out Ashley characters is names Abigail. Secondly I still don't understand if she is a realtor or an interior designer and why has her sister asked this of her. The only thing we see her doing is painting the house, which I believe, as an interior designer, you have someone else do.

So, the plot is not the best. Some things at the beginning are simply dumb. (And some at the end too, they fixed the problem of the house because they "fell in love"?) However, as the movie moves along, some things do make sense. Personally, I really liked the leads conversation about grieving someone and how it affects us, going through that myself. Things start to make sense then, it's like they bonded over that.

I thought they had great chemistry. At least, there was good banter. The actors made this kind of salvageable.

Remember when Marcus Rosner used to play the main character's ambitious ex boyfriend who would show up to propose only after she moved on? I'm so happy he gets to shine as a leading man.

Anyway, I had big hopes for this one and was disappointed.

I want to say worst premise ever, but I'm sure there are worse. But why is the professional designer assigned the task of convincing the co-owner to sell? And Abby, whose job depends on pleasing customers does practically everything possible to annoy Bo. Bo isn't much better, maybe worse. At first he is totally rude for no reason to Abby, the stranger. Later he basically assaults her with paint based on no previous relationship to justify it as a fun prank. As the movie goes on, it is incredible how poorly she treats clients and potential clients. Does anyone listen to what others are saying ... to them?

The dialogue is either sparkling and funny, or terrible. Actually there are a lot of good moments with it. I lean towards the latter, but I'm sure it will appeal to many.

Apparently this is grade school because Abby and Bo first have a spontaneous paint fight and then a couple scenes later a spontaneous snowball fight. This seems to be how they build the romantic relationship. Abby giggles as her clothes get spattered. These two are complete opposites and their natural reactions to each other's opinions doesn't bode well for a long term future, but maybe when they have the next conflict they will have a food fight and giggle. Their animosity disappears quickly, but their differences do not go away that easily even though the story will make you think both of them changed personalities.

This is Hallmark, so we have to have an evil developer who wants to "gentrify" a small town and make a lot of money. So the plot theme becomes largely about "saving" the small town.

Clearly the architects of this movie intended it to be light, upbeat and funny. It's too bad they led with rudeness. That is the vibe I picked up in the beginning, so I missed a lot of what was meant to be fun.

The characters were holding hot dogs at one point, then all of a sudden they had their hot dog-holding hands down by their sides and they stopped eating the hot dogs. In the next scene the couple are at the tree farm and the male lead is carrying an open wood tool box, but it looks like nothing is inside. When they reach the tree that is holding the ornaments, suddenly there are small discs of wood in the box and the character is pouring them out of the box into another receptacle. You really notice how little W cares about the plot, cast and continuity when you pay closer attention. My husband and I had a lot of fun looking for all the inaccuracies. It made up for the film having no plot. Which is what we expected: no plot. Merry Flipping Christmas!

Don't let the title mislead you on this one. If you like Hallmark movies to witness a developing romance, you may enjoy this. It's really a traditional "opposites-attract", and, fortunately, they cast (and focused on) two Hallmark veterans, Ashley Newbrough (Abigail) and Marcus Rosner (Bo), both very attractive, onscreen. Marcus Rosner has earned a good reputation as an antagonist, and plays it well against Ashley's character, Abigail. She is a career-driven, big-city woman, and Bo, is a small-town craftsman, still reeling from a divorce from a young romance, making him a little disdained with the assertive Abigail. They clash over a house, that Bo partially owns and has an emotional attachment to, because his recently deceased guardian, Frank, had lived there for years. Abigail wants to rennovate it, only to "flip" for profit. They compromise, and decide to improve the home to decide the outcome, later. There may have needed to be some "filler" time, here, as a few script-free scenes were playful banter between Bo and Abigail, a paint and snowball fight. But, considering that Bo hadn't restarted mingling, and married too young, it isn't shocking he would "break the ice" (no pun intended) this way. Their relationship starts to warm as Abigail begins to admire Bo's heart - she sees his creativity (and taste) in finishing the home decor, without her opinion (hand-crafted), and his unselfish soul - he donates his time and talents to the community. Her heart begins to open and she empathizes for the town, when she realizes she inadvertently enabled her entrepreneur connections to develop the town. By movie's end, there relationship has believably evolved into a blooming romance. This is why I'd rate this a 6-star. In many of this season's releases, "Never Been Chris'd and "The Santa Summit", ie., there's no screentime devoted to evolve the characters beyond attraction. Your left being apathetic about the characters. I could easily have bumped my rating to a seven-star, but the screenplay, (ie. Background musical score), and most of the supporting-cast, was overly enthusiastic, which made the early scenes somewhat corny...