Grounded for Christmas

The ex ostensibly forces them together into the charade, but he never seemed like a realistic possibility. The actor overplayed his lameness a little. Actually, most of the acting was less than stellar especially in embarrassing confrontations. The exception was Julianna Guill and Corey Sevier together. The antagonism turning to romance seemed real, albeit rushed.

There is more of a twist near the end than I've seen in a Christmas movie in a while. Caught me totally by surprise. The implications disturbed me a little at first and lowered my respect for one of the leads.

There is an easy on screen connection between the two leads. Corey Sevier and Julianna Guill are quite a likeable couple as the pilots grounded during the holidays. Since this is Lifetime, the couple have a different profession from the usual Hallmark type Christmas movie. If you ever wondered what happened to pilots during the holidays well It is fairly interesting and not a typical Christmas movie. The dialog is a bit more spontaneous too. Like Cheryl Ladd as mom.

This romantic comedy sees pilot Brady (Corey Sevier) and co-pilot Nina (Julianna Guill), strangers before they are assigned to the same flight, having to share a Christmas holiday together while their flight is grounded due to bad weather. Good performances and nice chemistry between the leads makes for an enjoyable film despite the budgetary shortcomings of the production.

I really liked this movie. The lead characters had great chemistry, and I thought Julianne Guill played her part perfectly. I think perhaps Lifetime is trying to do more realistic Christmas movies than Hallmark. Nina is a commercial airline pilot who has had to struggle to be accepted in her industry (she's not a bookstore or bakeshop owner, thank goodness). She meets Brady, a fellow pilot recently joining her airline, who admits that rumors have unfairly painted him as a player, and he hates it. Even Nina realizes that she is pre-judging him without even knowing him. You can always find some leaps of faith, so to speak, in these Christmas romance movies, such as the airport being closed for several days. And the fake boyfriend ruse has been probably overused in romance movies, but it's still a popular premise (even in books), and I thought it was handled well. So many Christmas romance movies are goofy (lead males named Nick drive me nuts and the town having a Santa character who magically intervenes), and kudos to this movie for avoiding some of that typical sap. I enjoyed getting to know Nina and Brady. I even thought a sequel (never done in these romance movies, it seems) would be interesting.

First off its not a "holiday" movie its a Christmas movie. Get over it if that offends you. Secondly, RELAX people, its a CHRISTMAS MOVIE. On LIFETIME. Its cute, nothing heavy, so if you actually are able to just enjoy things, you'll probably enjoy this movie. Better than I expected, good romantic story. Enjoy.