Mistletoe Moments

It's all about decorating and the decorating budget must have been forgotten about?... Maybe less fake snow and more vintage, Victorian design. Not realistic at all. Seems like the same bows were used in every scene. My home looks better than the Chapman house🙃 Definitely not a holly ball to remember. This is the cheesiest hallmark movie I've ever seen. Why make such a terrible movie if you don't have the budget to make it authentic to the script? The am new to Hallmark movies but there are some I do like but again, this takes the cake for the worst one I've seen. No drama, unrealistic timeline and again the budget and decor for the holly ball falls flat. Walmart decorates better than that!!

Yes, you guessed it, of course I had never heard about the 2023 movie "Designing Christmas With You" (aka "Mistletoe Moments") prior to sitting down to watch it here in 2024. I happened to have the chance to add it to my 2024 Christmas movie marathon, and since it was a movie that I was unfamiliar with, of course I did so.

Were I harboring grand expectations to Jo-Anne Brechin's 2023 movie? No, not really, as the movie's cover seemed rather generic and sappy. But then again, doesn't the vast majority of these movies essentially have the same cover of a woman and a man looking all cozy and Christmassy? And this movie was no different.

The storyline in the movie is generic, so very, very generic. Our leading actress stumbles into a stranger and it is an instant attraction, and she has to work on a huge Christmas event, but lo and behold the guy opposing her plans happens to be the leading actor, the stranger she bumped into in the beginning of the movie. Will they work out their differences and make Christmas a reality? And will they fall in love along the way? I think we all know the answers and the exact outcome of the story. So writer Ansley Gordon played it safe and put all bets on all the archetypical sappy Christmas movie tropes in history.

But of course, this means that the diehard fans of sappy Christmas movies will enjoy the movie a lot more than us casual viewers will. No doubt about that.

I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie, and that is actually something I do enjoy when I sit down to watch a movie. The acting performances in the movie were fair.

Hardly a movie that I will ever return to watch a second time, but it was entertaining enough for what it was.

My rating of director Jo-Anne Brechin's 2023 movie "Designing Christmas With You" lands on a five out of ten stars.

I enjoyed this movie for most of it due in large part to the chemistry between the leads Susie Abromeit and Liam McIntyre, that is until each of them started letting their own insecurities get in the way. The development of their relationship was slightly unusual. In their first anonymous meeting, the meet-cute, they got along quite well despite her hitting him by accident with a snowball. The usual formula in rom/coms is an antagonistic first meeting, although there are exceptions. But then instead of following the formula of building their relationship after the first meeting, once they are assigned to work together there is some conflict. This of course, is quickly disarmed and the middle of the movie is mostly upbeat. It does follow the common formula of the two working together to plan a Holly Ball.

Another slight deviation from formula is the conflict. Most movies would have done the misunderstood overheard conversation as the only part of the conflict between them. But then Colbie gets hit with a double whammy which without giving it away is huge. BTW, one part of that double whammy was never really dealt with to reconcile it. The end is much as you would expect since you really can't have it any other way in this kind of movie.

The acting is good. The dialogue is good.

I had one issue which is one of my biggest pet peeves but most people will either not notice or not care. Why are the text message exchanges so small? They were as meaningful as the rest of the dialogue. I had to pause and rewind then pause and play a little at a time because each tiny message appeared in place of the previous one, instead of listing down the screen. This was a huge annoyance to me and there was another brief tiny text later. I deduct 2 stars for this.

In summary, the story had some of the usual formula but with some minor modifications. But I enjoyed most of the movie thanks to the relationships.

There's very little purpose in critiquing the low production values for each movie, the similar 6 or so storylines used over and over again and the halting, bumbling style of the romances in Hallmark movies. I have seen these productions being made from around 2010 to present day and 90% of them all have the same general low-budget, repetitive storyline, cringe-inducing approach.

I turn a blind critical eye to all of this and just ask for a couple of things:

1. Do the leads seem casted for match in terms of physical appeal?

2. Despite the script always requiring romantic hesitancy, does the male lead at least act like he has 2 X chromosomes throughout the movie?

3. Does some overt romantic chemistry develop throughout the movie or do we have to view 90 minutes of nothing only to get a surprise kiss as the credits roll?

I think this movie rates a grade B- on my scale.

Designing Christmas With You/Mistletoe Moments (2023) -

If I'm honest I probably didn't give this film a lot of my attention whilst also completing a jigsaw puzzle, but it didn't exactly steal my attention away from said jigsaw either. As storylines go it had definitely been done at least 20 times before almost word for word in some respects, but it wasn't bad either. If this was the first time I was tuning in to a Hallmark/Lifetime film this one would have done very nicely and I might have gone gooey for the romance, but as someone that saturates themself in these films every Christmas it had nothing new or standout about it specifically.

Except perhaps Liam McIntyre as the leading man Ben. I've been needing some new blood to turn up for a while and he was certainly different, but when I had previously watched him play the role of 'Spartacus' (2010-13) I had thought that he was a bit too soft for that rugged manly action role, now watching him in this I felt that he would actually be more suited to climbing through air ducts or fighting Bruce Lee or something because he was hard to buy as an Estate Manager and he was also a bit too charming as if he was playing a Prince or something instead of a glorified caretaker. His manners and decorum were all a bit too much like it was something he had to be every day as a part of his work, not necessarily natural for a regular fella. But he was obviously handsome, especially in that dinner suit and I liked his sexy voice.

Colbie (Susie Abromeit) was really quite arrogant right from the off though and it was only when she started to try and see things his way that she became likeable.

As Colbie worked with Ben to create a fundraising event for an old family estate they did bond and the connection was there to see, but there was also the usual confusion towards the end about whether he liked her or not, etc and that specific overheard way of doing things had well and truly been done to death in so many other films before.

I also hated the idea that if she did well with the job she would get a promotion, but if she didn't do well she would be the office pariah and unlikely to be offered advancement ever again. That is one of the things that always seems to happen in these films and makes me wonder why they work for such tyrants in the first place. It wasn't so severe in this one, but it did aggravate me that the Boss was like that.

And I had to wonder why they never took off her coat and his scarf? Was that why he had such a husky voice? Was the set absolutely freezing and giving them all colds?

I might actually come back to this one to give it my full attention, but not until I've ploughed through so many others first. Perhaps that huskiness will charm me and take me with them more thoroughly next time if I catch the glint in his eye a bit more without focussing on a puzzle?

6.39/10.