Believe in Christmas

Is it an act, a setup, or isn't it? There are hints early on that Christmasland might be giving the visitors a pretend romantic fantasy. I think it was something Em said. She and Bea are joking constantly in act 1 about everything they encounter, or will encounter, fitting perfectly in a Christmas movie rom/com. And the things that happen do fit. It seems like all the plot device boxes are checked. It is a little confusing because for a while Em seems to be accepting it as mostly real, but then she's starts honestly questioning again. All of this makes this movie a little different like a parody.

Real life husband and wife Ory and Reardon have the chemistry you would expect. Lindura's Em and Kevin Hanchard's Porter don't have quite as much partly because the story keeps you guessing as to whether he is an actor or not.

The climax is done well and the viewer's questions, as well as B and Em's questions, are finally answered maybe not completely like the viewer expects. I was still guessing at least a little.

I saw a meme about how cookie cutter Hallmark Christmas movies are, and it is so true for 80-90 percent of them. This movie takes advantage of that expectation and delivers something worth watching.

Are these two supposed to be a couple?? They look like father and daughter! I was so Disturbed and confused by this I couldn't focus on the movie. Why would any casting Department put these two together?? And why is the leading man have this curly weird wig with terrible Hairspray?? He's a good looking guy why would they want to mess him up with this terrible looking wig? So the movie is okay but it's so distracting by these two glaring things that I couldn't watch it..

The 2024 movie "Believe in Christmas" from director Christie Will Wolf found its way to my 2024 Christmas movie marathon. Sure, I had never heard about it, but that hardly mattered, as I do enjoy watching movies I am unfamiliar with. But I can't claim that I harbored the biggest of expectations to the movie, as the movie's cover was rather generic, even for a Christmas movie. But of course, it is not really fair to judge a movie by its cover alone.

I have to say that writers Maggie Dallen, Anne-Marie Meyer and Christie Will Wolf collectively only managed to churn out a script and storyline that was taken straight from the how-to-write-a-sappy-Christmas-movie guidebook. But hey, if you enjoy archetypical sappy and campy Christmas movies, then you're in for a treat here. If you sit down to watch the movie as a casual viewer, as I did, then you're not really in for a particularly memorable viewing experience. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that "Believe in Christmas" is a bad movie, not at all. It was just formulaic and generic.

The only face on the cast list that I was familiar with was leading actress Meghan Ory. It should be noted, though, that the acting performances in the movie were fair.

"Believe in Christmas" is not a movie that will ever get a second playing on my screen. It just simply wasn't outstanding in a vast sea of similar movies out there. And it didn't have the contents to be a Christmas classic.

My rating of director Christie Will Wolf's 2024 movie "Believe in Christmas" lands on a four out of ten stars.

I almost never leave reviews, but this is one that I couldn't leave without comment: Those strings doing nothing but straight beats- Why did this happen at least twice? (I'm not rewatching to double check) It gave a tension that was out of place in a Christmas movie and the specific scenes.

I know what I'm getting myself into when I start a Hallmark Christmas movie, but I at least expect for the background to stay in the background! Most of the time, background music is forgettable for me, but not in this one, and certainly not for good reason.

And the final scene was the worst of all! What was in the fire? Pop Rocks? It was the loudest fire I've ever heard!

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie! It was fun seeing the real-life husband-and-wife as the leads, which I knew from their other shows and movies, being together for the first time as leads. I liked the references to Hallmark staples in their movies, the premise of a show within a movie, and the different little touches. The secondary characters did well keeping the premise going and didn't really give anything away. Not sure where this was filmed but at times it looked like the actors were in a winter setting. For me, John Reardon and Meghan Ory were delightful, and adding his boss from Hudson and Rex was a nice bonus!

Very well done.