Noël à la une

Come on. Seriously? The casting is horrid. That lead actor in a romantic comedy? Maybe, cause it is funny to think a man who speaks like that is a romantic lead. Zero chemistry between the leads. Zero. Completely forced. This actor is so wrong for this part. Her teeth are so bleached that it hurts your eyes to look at them. So its bleached teeth and a lisper falling in love.

Nice cast led by the full of energy Tiya Sicar, a very well-reviewed actress and great talent. I suspect that this will be the first and last Christmas movie she will be involved with. She was paired with Joe Dinicol who brings a dorky charm to his role. The mother was delightful (as yet uncredited on IMDb) and had one of the funniest lines I remember in a Lifetime Christmas movie: "I saw a wreath in Cosmetics that looked like a crown of thorns!" I had to rewind the DVR to make sure I heard that correctly. Hilarious! The plot was something different and had a nice twist at the end. The big mystery is how a black woman and a white man could have had an Indian daughter. I'm not sure whether ignoring ethnicity is a good thing or a bad thing. What ever, It's better than #Hallmarksowhite of days gone by, for sure.

If Christmas shopping is a kind of "tradition" for Americans, then I am seriously concerned about the values that this so-called "democratic" country spreads and imposes (in all possible ways and with all possible tools) throughout the world.

Christmas 9 to 5 (2019) -

As someone who has done more than my fair share of Christmases in a retail and hospitality environment, I can honestly say that this was not a film for customer assistants, supervisors or managers to watch unless they want to spend the entire hour and a half scoffing at everything that was wrong with it.

The producers of this film had no idea how retail works and I had to question if they'd ever even been in a shop or understood how a business is run, because there was just no way that you could save a department store like that in just one Christmas by doing the things that happened in this film.

And Joe Dinicol was not a leading man, if he'd been my manager, it would have taken a lot for him to have earned my respect. What a dweeb, he couldn't run a shop to save his life. If his character had been a sales assistant or a visual merchandiser I might have found it more believable for her to make a connection with him, but it was hard to believe them as a couple with him being such a useless manager and her being just as useless at so much too.

The story had been done before, with a better structure and written by someone who had actually worked in retail or at least been in a shop, but the ideas in this one were all too far fetched and a lot of it was very cliched, without actually doing the tried and tested the justice that makes it so often used.

It was all very obvious, without it being cute in any way and it just angered me for all of its flaws.

2.50/10.

Love seeing Chicago onscreen and what an old school type feel in this movie. An ode to retail and newspaper businesses. Love it! Chi makes great backdrop and character itself.

While liberties are taken in every film (was army and find those hard to watch at times) to tell the story, this was a great feel good Christmas story. Chi is perfect setting and I was transported back in time while seeing the magic of Christmas present. Reminded me of my own childhood going to a smaller city to department stores at Christmas. Love the nostalgia and bringing into present. Plus the diversity of actors.

Online shopping is convenient but this brings it home to the wonder of retail, writing and Christmas.