The title is on the corny side but was appetising and cute enough. There is absolutely nothing novel or innovative about the story, but there was the potential if done decently it could have some charm without being too sweet. Hallmark Christmas films are a very mixed bag and one should never expect too much from them, but they have shown more than once amidst all their average and less efforts that they are capable of above average and even surprisingly good festive films.
'A Christmas Tree Grows in Colorado' left me a bit mixed in terms of what my opinion on it was overall. It is a long way from being a terrible film in my view and served its purpose as a just scraping borderline average, inoffensive film. Other Hallmark Christmas films are far worse written, acted and looking and ones that bored, annoyed and insulted the intelligence more. Sadly, 'A Christmas Tree Grows in Colorado' didn't strike me as particularly good either, with a lot of the usual flaws apparent. It does have good things.
Which are going to be mentioned first. Visually, 'A Christmas Tree Grows in Colorado' looks quite good with it being shot and lit well and while standard the settings were appealing at least. The music has some affectionate nostalgia that does give off a festive vibe. Some of the film is heart-warming and sweet, with good intentions evident and doesn't feel too heavy.
Best of all is the acting. Rochelle Ayrtes and Mark Taylor are immensely engaging leads, particularly the former who has some very heartfelt moments, and personally did think that their characters had likeability and were interesting. Despite having very sketchy roles, the supporting cast also excel. Grace Sunar is a real delight and on the way to having a promising career if she continues acting. They do have a nice natural, genuine chemistry together, it's standard but there is spark and charm with them.
However, 'A Christmas Tree Grows in Colorado' could have been better. There could have been a lot more development to most of the characters, with too many of them being sketchy and the film provides very little variation on nearly every character cliche in the book. Or at least that's how it felt like. The story doesn't have enough to it. Actually don't mind awfully that it was very formulaic.
What bothered me a lot more was that it was very unimaginatively executed, was really not much of one at all, had some fairly contrived situations and the film gets so sweet (too much so) in places it was almost sickly. Everything with the tree started off well but got ridiculous later. The script is similarly thin and quite routine, tending to have an awkward flow and was excessively cheesy and schmaltzy. By the end, which while sweet can indeed be seen from miles off, of the film it was one big pile of sloppy mush. Pacing can be a problem, with the story being too little a lot of the film crawls along and feels over-stretched. The direction is only functional at best and can be on the leaden side of things.
Overall, watchable but merely average. 5/10.
