Christmas Solo

Christmas Solo is a delicacy amidst a sea of "Christmas cookie cutter" movies. There are no "weak" elements of the movie. Acting, wardrobe, everything is good. The chemistry between the parents is amazing. This isn't a typical romance movie and yet they are so good that they "sell it" anyway. Every scene with them together is believable and not under-acted nor over-acted. It is "just right". This will seem a bit random, but whoever was on hair did an incredible job. Jennifer's (Kelly William's) hair always looks AMAZING. In many Christmas movies, there is some kind of pain that the main character(s) is having to overcome from the past. However, it feels more like just "backstory". Here, the pain of well...all of the four character's pasts is very much real and in the story. Great storytelling, great story. Nicely written too. I highly recommend this movie.

Christmas Solo has two stories in one.

Jennifer is a vet who has moved to a small town with her teenage daughter Charlotte from San Francisco. Jennifer ends up tussling with Nate over some fancy Christmas decorations the only ones left in the store as no one in these small towns has heard of ebay or Amazon.

However both find romance with each other but there is a fly in the ointment. Nate also has a teenage daughter Melissa and she is not happy that Charlotte has nabbed the solo at the school Christmas concert.

Melissa has turned mean girl on Charlotte including having her house daubed with graffiti.

This is a nice enough Christmas film, maybe it needed a few more better songs but the ending was a little bit too sweet and convenient. Obviously the police in these small towns are not too hot on pursuing people for criminal damage to private property.

I love the dual storylines for mother and daughter to watch together. And I appreciated the light shed in bullying and grief.

I enjoyed the line "Boyfriend for Christmas," which refers to one of Kelli Williams' earlier Christmas movies which I generally watch each year. Kelli has graduated from child to parent in this movie that deals with bullying and forgiveness. I appreciated how the film showed parents can often exacerbate a bad situation among teens, but, also, they can be instrumental in healing them. As the movie was a feel-good holiday flick, it ends happily. Wish it were so simple in real life.

This movie should have a Sequel to see what kind of family they would have