The Holiday Sitter

This is the most relaxed I've ever seen Jonathan Bennett in one of these movies and I've watched a lot of his movies. He's also really great at slapstick comedy. Why isn't he on a sitcom? And George Krissa-where has he been?

Super cute and also fun movie. Sam showed the most character development as the story is told from his point of view but it was well written with a believable ending. I'm not sure that these 2 would stay together long term but the writing got me to the ending. I also liked the side stories with Kathleen, Nate and the baby as well as Sam's relationships with Kathleen and her kids. Lots of development there as well.

Loved the nods to Mean Girls and Legally Blonde. Though I'm not sure what the connection is to Legally Blonde.

Jonathan and George have great chemistry. This was a great movie that was the literal definition of RomCom.

This was Hallmark's first Christmas movie featuring two gay characters in leading roles The Christmas House also featured Jonathan Bennett as a gay character, which was. Nice, but he and his husband played more as secondary characters.

This one was about a love story. The plot was fine. The performances were pretty good. But.... I love Jonathan Bennett. He's great looking, and I've seen him give some really good performances. I have noticed that when he does comedy, he tends to go over the top. Lots of mugging and big eyes. He doesn't need it. I think a toned down performance would play better, even in a comedy. Bennett's final scenes show how good he can be.

Hallmark seems to be diversifying. Not only in types of characters, but in plots as well. I've seen a couple of new movies this year that don't feature a love story as the main plot line. It's a welcome development.

I watch a ton of Christmas movies (Hallmark, Lifetime, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu etc) and rank them on letterboxd. The UK movie "Christmas Number One" has been my top ranked movie for about 5 weeks now (out of 64 new movies so far this year).

Welp, it was just knocked off it's spot by THE HOLIDAY SITTER. I love this movie! I was looking forward to it as Hallmark's first Christmas movie featuring a gay lead couple. It didn't disappoint. It's light and funny and genuine with two gorgeous and sweet leads who have electric chemistry together.

The plot is a fish-out-of-water story about a guy who is roped into babysitting his neice and nephew for a few days before Christmas due to a family emergency. He has no idea what to do with kids but, fortunately, the hot guy next door loves children and is willing to lend a hand.

There's comedy, romance, and some genuine family feels. I loved the character arc of the lead who goes from "I never want to get married or have kids" to falling for the guy *and* the kids and family life. There's a moving discussion he has with his sister about the queen experience.

The script is quite good, but it's the leads who make this special. Thank you, Hallmark, Jonathan Bennett, and George Krissa for making this landmark movie so beautiful.

This movie had such wit and a minimal amount of the usual "Hallmarky" tropes, I almost had to check and see if I fell by accident into Netflix!

Jonathan Bennett is charming as all-get-out. As Executive Producer, I am assuming he got the script he wanted, which is well above the average for the Hallmark Machine. And he is clearly very invested in what he is doing. Of course, the usual things happen--a near-kiss at the one-hour mark and a misunderstanding at the one hour forty-five minutes mark, etc. But, this one has a distinct lack of cheese and the usual overstuffed silliness.

The Gay angle really works here, as opposed to some other films they make when they try to shoehorn Gay characters into one of their usual plots (listen to a podcast by the brilliant Bobby Leiber for more on this topic) and expect it to work. But, as this film is set in the NYC Metro it is very plausible that their romance could bloom in a friendly, accepting environment. Honestly, I was watching this with the intention of having an amusing "Hate Watch," but was pleasantly surprised. HALLMARK: Keep on breaking that cookie cutter with which you make WAY too many movies. Doing something different might engage more viewers!

Gay Sam (Jonathan Bennett) agrees to babysit his niece and nephew around Christmas while his sister and her husband go to pick up a baby they adopted. He has a little trouble with the kids so he asks for help from the next door neighbor Jason (George Krissa). Turns out Jason is gay also and, as he helps Sam, they become attracted to each other. However Jason wants kids and Sam doesn't.

Utterly predictable but sweet movie. It's VERY G rated but it's colorful and has a good cast. Bennett and Krissa play off each other very well although Bennett has a tendency to overact at times. Still I applaud that we finally have a gay rom-com! Also there are two nice kisses between the guys at the end :) No great shakes but sweet.