Christmas on Windmill Way

I don't have high expectations for a holiday movie, yet I had a hard time just getting through it. There's nothing original or interesting about the story, the main characters had zero chemistry, and the actors sounded like they were reading from cards.

I watched this one with a few other people, and we all decided this must have been produced during the SAG writers' strike and on a low budget. We kept waiting for something interesting to happen, and it was really strange (and distracting) that the actors delivered their lines in monotone at approximately half-speed of a normal conversation, always in muted, whispery tones and with flat affect.

I don't recommend this unless you literally have nothing else to watch.

It's a one in a million Christmas movie with mediocre acting. Usually I enjoy these types of movies on a lazy Sunday afternoon, but as a Dutch person, this one is annoying me a lot.

The lack of research for this movie is honestly impressive. They're saying literally all the Dutch words wrong (except oma), they're even making up Dutch words, the details about traditions don't make any sense and the 'traditional' outfit the girl is wearing, is more a 'German Heidi' outfit, not a Dutch one.. there's just really nothing Dutch about this movie.

If you're not willing to do the research, just make a movie about something you have knowledge off.

As part of a Christmas movie marathon here in December, I had the opportunity to sit down and watch the 2023 movie "Christmas on Windmill Way". Sure, I had never heard about the movie prior to sitting down to watch it.

Did I harbor any grand expectations to the movie? No, not really, as it seemed to be a generic Christmas movie from the cover alone. But, of course, I opted to give the movie a fair chance.

Writer Billy Schofield put together a fair enough script. Sure, it held components of traditional generic sappy Christmas storytelling, but at the same time the storyline actually proved entertaining enough to be enjoyable. I actually did enjoy the narrative in the movie.

The only performer on the screen that I was familiar with was Chad Michael Murray, whom has been starring in other sappy Christmas movies as well. The chemistry between the two leading performers, that being Chad Michael Murray and Christa Taylor Brown, was good. The acting performances in the movie were fair.

Hardly a Christmas classic in the making, but I will say that "Christmas On Windmill Way" proved enjoyable and entertaining. And if you like Christmas movies, then you should check the movie out.

My rating of director Don McBrearty's 2023 movie lands on a six out of ten stars.

Decent plot but honestly the only reason I watched the whole movie was because I love Chad Michael Murray but it was truly a struggle to watch the entire movie. Christa Taylor Brown brings nothing to the screen and comes across with very little warmth. Chad is able to create a spark in just about any movie he is in but even he was not able to bring out anything in his leading lady.

The other characters helped to liven up the movie but unfortunately so much of the footage concentrated on Christa that I was glad when it was finally over. I will continue to look for other Chad Michael Murray movies and only hope he doesn't team up with Christa again.

Chad Michael Murray is always good, but there must be chemistry between him and his leading lady and in this case there wasn't any. I believe that Christa Taylor Brown was a miscast for this movie. Her style and his style are too much alike. They are both blonde and she is very soft spoken and so is he, so together they were so boring to watch. It was like they were brother and sister instead of potential love interests. It was a very hard movie to finish.

The story itself has been done so many times before that within 10 minutes I knew exactly how the wind mill would be saved and the only reason I kept watching was because of Chad Michael Murray. I will always watch a movie with him even if it's not good because of a miscast.