The Most Colorful Time of the Year

Last year, and especially this year, Hallmark started to push the envelope as far as venturing out beyond its safe and standard bone-tired plots, and this one is no exception. A secretly color-blind teacher meets an ophthalmologist, the single mother of one of his students, who sees through his lifelong tricks and strategies to disguise his disability. She enters him into a clinical trial without his consent after he tells her he is not interested once his subterfuges have been discovered. Although most definitely unethical and an invasion of privacy I can almost give her a pass on this because he doesn't fully understand what he is missing in life. See, he is not only color-confused (red and green or blue and yellow being indistinguishable from each other,) but totally unable to see any color whatsoever. Also, it's stupid he is not interested. Why wouldn't he be interested? He's a science teacher. Just because nothing has worked before, trying on a pair of glasses is hardly a surgical procedure or taking an untested drug. But it was wrong of her, it must be said. The way the whole color-blindness thing is handled is lazy and irresponsible. His condition is very rare, while the other is a fairly common condition that indeed can be mitigated by special glasses of the sort that are provided by this clinical trial. Monochromia would be impossible scientifically to correct with glasses due to the cause of the condition. Maybe this could be partially excused by deeming this cure part of a "clinical trial" but it is as far-fetched and as far from being science-based as a pill to cure alcoholism would be. In other words, the idea was interesting but the execution and details lacked authenticity to put it kindly. It is another example of Hallmark seeming like they have contempt for their viewers by glossing over unrealistic plot points that actually could potentially be harmful, hurtful, and deceitful if taken seriously.

To make matters worse this movie is sponsored by a company that makes the aforementioned glasses that mitigate color confusion in some people with lots of emotional videos of people acting like they once were blind and now can see. So they're using the emotions that might be generated by this movie to burnish and exaggerate the benefits of their product that has nothing to do with the disability portrayed. Or maybe they were not aware of the nature of the color blindness depicted in this movie and got manipulated to buy ad space. Whatever, someone did wrong.

Once he finally tries on the glasses and his world is changed, there really isn't anywhere else to go with it, other than going around looking at colorful scenes. Featuring mostly red and green. At one point she takes him to a church where I thought they were going to look at stained glass windows. But she took him there to wrap presents. In his first hours of seeing color for the first time? Really?

So it falls back on the usual tropes once the color-blindness thing is out of the way leading to the inevitable big misunderstanding. In this case, an over-eager wanna-be girlfriend and a more psycho and controlling stalker ex-boyfriend whom both leads are too nice and patient with. The good doctor even agreeing to him inviting himself to her child's Christmas pageant. The ex-boyfriend bit could have actually been a lot more entertaining if he had gotten punched in the nose by our hero when he crudely twitted him about his pay as a middle-school teacher. However, instead, our hero chose to deliver a lecture that seemed to suggest that teachers did not need fair pay, cuz it's "a calling" and they don't care about the money. Very noble, but I know a few teachers that would disagree with that.

It's not a secret that I have a soft spot for Christopher Russell. But, he should stick with the Cary Grant or Clark Gable-type roles where charm and good looks are more important than range of emotion. When he put on those glasses and saw color for the first time a lot more was required as far as an emotional reaction. On the positive side, Katrina Bowden was very good as the caring but over-stepping doctor, and her daughter was also very good. CR was believable and endearing as a committed teacher who was definitely overqualified for his job. Best of all though was Joanna Douglas as Heidi, the lead's supportive sister. Hey Hallmark! Lock this girl in and promote her from supportive sister/friend to head girl. STAT!

I've always liked Katrina Bowden. She is past her Miss Tasty/hottest girl in the world days, but she's still really pretty and makes a very nice Hallmark lead. I hope she does more.

Christopher Russell just keeps getting better. He was a bit stiff when he appeared on the scene a few years ago, but now he has a natural quality that is very appealing.

This movie is about a colorblind man seeing the beauty of the world for the first time, and his heart is opened in the process. There are some genuinely touching moments along the way.

The requisite conflict is brought on by a clingy ex in her case, and an admirer in his, leading to the usual Hallmark misunderstanding.

I liked this movie. Better than most.

This is one of the most driest Christmas movies I have ever seen. I get the storyline but the entire film is so lackluster, and feels forced. I have nothing against the characters but it feels like they're trying too hard to make the entire film convincing, let alone the storyline. It's a film you'll watch one time and forget about it because it's just not solid enough, even with a few cute elements. Those elements feel forced, too.

Christmas movies, generally speaking, is meant to give you the holiday feels, I get that, but it's also cheesy and unrealistic. It forces us to believe that everyone is giving, helpful, more specifically, around Christmas time, and that there is always some handsome prince out there waiting to sprinkle his magic by accident to someone unsuspecting, and fall in love. Total cliché for sure. Anyway, circling back, this film is a solid 5/10 for me. It's nice but only for one night.

The good: recognition for a hidden disability.

The bad: too many moments of awkward dialog, a cringy, stalker-like ex-boyfriend character, and too many unrealistic moments that detract from the overall message, especially with the aforementioned ex-boyfriend. Also, I wish Hallmark would really vet scripts to make sure they accurately portray professions. Schools never have a database of teachers' personal cell phone numbers for parent use, and teachers would never just up and leave in the middle of the school day on a whim. The formulaic conflict in the last half hour was unnecessary and unrealistic.

This is an unusual premise. The usual Christmas activities in this movie seem limited to a pageant and Christmas decorations, the latter for obvious reasons. The persistence of Michelle and her daughter, Bailey, lead to tension that isn't romantic for over half the movie. The ploy by Bailey is cute and changes the tone to be more Christmas like.

No matter how accurate is the representation of what Ryan sees, the movie works to capture the wonder he experiences. I do question how accurate the science of it is especially given that during the premiere on Hallmark, there is a commercial for corrective glasses. Is it irony that Ryan is a science teacher? I couldn't find anything conclusive in a simple internet search, but what I saw led me to believe that the actual experience is not as pure especially if Ryan's case was extreme as Michelle stated.

And Mark!? What is with his request that leads to the misunderstanding? Why in the world would Michelle agree?

The acting is OK. The dialogue is ok with a few good moments. Given the relatively small amount of screen time spent by Michelle and Ryan when things are good, it is hard to say there is much chemistry between Katrina Bowden and Christopher Russel or why the characters would feel so strongly.