Holly & Ivy

My wife and I enjoyed this Hallmark movie after our weekly steak dinner and wine. Unlike most this one is filmed in Utah and not in Canada. Not that there is anything wrong with Canada.

Set in Wisconsin, it starts leading up to Christmas. A 26-yr-old single woman moves to town with a degree in Library Sciences, a newly purchased "fixer upper" house, but no job yet. Pretty quickly she meets a young man who runs a local construction business. They hit it off pretty quickly.

But the bigger story is her next door neighbor, a single woman with two daughters and a terminal illness. With no other family will the young lady, new in town, step up and volunteer to care for the two girls?

A really good story about friendship, family, and following your dreams. At home on DVD from our public library. One of the better Hallmark movies we have seen.

Ultimately, there is one measure for rating Christmas movies that outweighs the others. Will I watch it again? Oh, yes.

If you watched the previews, you know what could have been the surprise a little before half way, but even so, it wouldn't have been totally unexpected. Nina's cancer is back and she has no other family for her kids. Melody grew up in foster care and she will let those kids go there only over her dead body. But she has a challenge. No permanent job, and a house that needs an overhaul because she bought it to fix it. And she has little time to get it up to code for CPS inspection.

The premise is unusual, but is perfect for the Christmas season. It's super sappy, but also super irresistible. For starters, there's two adorable little girls, an equally cute puppy and a sad sad story that needs hope.

The movie is about family and community and dreams and reality. And books.

It's interesting because Jeremy Jordan must like to act opposite super-heroines. In another TV world, last I looked, he was Supergirl's best friend. Melody makes Kara Danvers look selfish. Jordan and Janel Parrish have wonderful chemistry. Marisol Nichols is very reserved as Nina, but that's her part. The actors playing the two girls do a great job. Neither of them falls into the trap of child actors in a Christmas movie of overplaying her part. And they bring an energy to the movie which Parrish amplifies.

Are there flaws in the movie. I'm sure there are. I already said it was predictable, although I wasn't sure about one major thing until almost the end. This movie isn't strictly a romance movie because the bigger story is Melody, Nina and the kids, but that's a plus.

PS: 2020 isn't over yet, and I'm sitting here watching at least the last half of it for the 4TH time and tears are still flowing. I think that says that I love this movie.

This is my 9th Hallmark Christmas movie of the 2020 season. Overall, I was a bit disappointed with this one; it is at the bottom of my list thus far. I see that some reviewers here really enjoyed the film. However, I did not have the same viewing experience. It is a very sweet story, don't get me wrong, as other reviews have pointed out. But I had to stop myself on multiple occasions from multi-tasking, i.e., grabbing for my iPad. It was not until the last 20 minutes or so, at around the sleigh riding scene, that I was drawn into the film. Thus, for much of it, I was not engaged. The acting by the leads was OK. I know Jeremy Jordan from his role on Supergirl; I like his character in that series. He performed well here too. However, I was unimpressed with Janel Parrish's performance. She did have a couple of good scenes (e.g., the first date scene), and her performance did improve in the second half of the film, but her performance overall simply did not draw me in. As always in Hallmark movies, the supporting cast was good. Ivy (Piper Rubio) and Betty (the puppy) had very cute performances, for example. The role of Nina (Marisol Nichols), however, was an exception. Though she did perform well in the latter half of the film, there were several times where she looked like she was acting, which is not a good sign for an actor. The movie does get you into the Christmas spirit, especially the last 20 minutes.

7/10 - one of the better Hallmark Christmas movies this year has good actors and a heart-wrenching, original storyline

"Why blend in when you can stand out?"-Dr.Seuss "Be white hot and passionate."-Roald Dahl

This film has a beautiful cast and is about a sweet former foster care raised master of library science driven 27 year old woman, who buys a large dilapidated house to start working on her dream of working with children as a librarian. She befriends her next door single-mom neighbor, Nina, and her two daughters, Holly and Ivy. She also meets a contractor and want to be wood furniture builder who she becomes romantically involved with. Nina's lymphoma ends up coming back and our heroine Melody who was raised in foster care volunteers to take the girls so they won't go into the system.

Melody has these vintage elves for her Christmas tree that were given to her by her first foster family, every year for 5 years. These are still prized ornaments and as she says they are the hardest working in Santa's story and she could relate to that.

This was a sweet sentiment Christmas story about finding your own family, foster care and adoption.

"Help where help is needed, not just when it is easy."