Christmas at Dollywood

This made for TV Christmas themed film missed their target audience by a country mile. Sorry Dolly, we love you but your earlier film in 2016 "Dolly Parton's Christmas of Many Colors: Circle of Love" was so much better and much more personal that touched on the true meaning of Christmas. This film which tried way too hard to make sure that every single scene that actress Danica McKellar appeared in would warm our hearts just did not work. Danica McKellar plays Rachel Davis a widower Special Events Planner whose childhood dream was to be a children's book writer.

Although Rachel reminisces around the family kitchen table with her own parents and her daughter while making homemade Christmas ornaments, the scenes felt so much staged that I thought I was watching an extended commercial that just dragged on.

Of course there is a romantic interest between Rachel (Danica McKellar) and Dollywood's new general manager Luke Hackman (Niall Matter) but the nauseating banter and shallow cat and mouse foreplay was just too much for Mrs. Shullivan and I to want to even watch the rest of this so called Christmas themed film with the phony cotton ball snow on the set, and the word Christmas repeated ad nauseum.

Most irritating though was how often the director thought the next scene would be the BIG tear jerker scene, but our tears were saying "oh please, let's get this show over with."

I give Christmas at Dollywood a paltry 5 out of 10 IMDB rating and will state affirmatively that this is a forgettable film that Dolly would be better served calling it Christmas Ad Nauseum.

If you take out Dolly Parton and Dollywood, this movie is a very lackluster production which almost could have been written by a phone app or a bunch of monkeys using past scripts and piecing them together. The story elements had no originality. The dialogue was blah. The acting was not worthy of note. There might have been a smidgen of chemistry between Danica and Niall.

I'm sure most viewers noticed Mckeller's real life book which in the story, and probably in real life, was being distributed by Dolly's foundation to children's charities. Someone made a reference talking to Danica's character saying that maybe she too would one day have her book from the movie story distributed by Dolly's organization.

Danica is cute but apart from a few Songs sung by Dolly there isn't enough of her. A few minutes at the end. The story is boring. Dollywood looks okay the parade nice. Not too unique just a nice generic theme park set romance.

The expected Hallmark Christmas film, saved by Dolly Parton and correct job of Niall Matter. Nothing new but a good show , nice details and good used pieces of a too familiar game. So, just nice.

Again you must remember these movies are mostly filmed well before Christmas so that's why they couldn't film all at once. I did pick up on Danica's sister's hair - most scenes her hair was brown and the next scene it was jet black which meant she probably had other projects in between filming this picture. I actually thought the main leads had great chemistry, I really like the male lead (hunk)!! I thought it was a really good movie although it would've been nice for Dolly to perform a song or two but it was great seeing her.... she still looks amazing. Well done to cast and crew!