Un Noël magique à New York

Right, well from the very cover alone, I figured that the sap would be extraordinarily sticky here in this movie.

Sure, I had never heard about the 2023 movie titled "Christmas Casanova" from writer Shannon Latimer and director Will Bowes. But still, I opted to watch the movie and give it a fair chance, as part of this years Christmas movie marathon. But hey, without any prior knowledge of the movie, I suppose that writer Shannon Latimer had every opportunity to entertain, bedazzle and impress me with the movie's script and storyline.

The storyline was sort of adequate. It was an okay storyline, but it just wasn't particularly Christmassy. And that was sort of disappointing. Yeah, the movie didn't have that traditional, and generic, sappy contents that make up the majority of Christmas movies.

I was actually not familiar with a single actress or actor on the cast list, and believe it or not, but that is actually something that I do enjoy and appeal to me whenever I sit down to watch a movie. The movie was nicely carried by leading actress Kalinka Petrie and leading actor Fuad Ahmed.

"Christmas Casanova" is hardly a Christmas classic, nor is it a movie that I will return to watch a second time. If you're looking for a traditional sugar-coated and sappy Christmas movie, then your effort is better spent elsewhere.

My rating of director Will Bowes's 2023 movie "Christmas Casanova" lands on a bland five out of ten stars.

I enjoyed seeing ethnic actors for a change. The movie plot was fun. The acting was acceptable. I just don't understand why directors think a Christmas movies have to have constant music. It's like they had a closet full of soundtracks and decided to put a movie to it. It never stopped. Sometimes it was low enough in the background but most of the time it competed with the dialog. It's intrusive. If you have a good script you don't need all that music. Though it follows the formula of all Christmas romance movies, it was an interesting time getting there. Just wish I could suggest to all producers of Christmas movies to stop the music.

Genuinely loved this movie.

Yes there's still the overarching themes you find in all of these MOW Christmas films, but there were spins that genuinely left me excited to add this to my yearly watch.

1) The boss. Comedy chops were 10/10. Absolute scene-stealer.

2) The storyline of a Pakistani man participating in Christmas with a platonic female friend + her fam felt like a true depiction of my best friend. I never get to see his background represented in these so I was over the moon.

3) Female lead was so fun to watch. I loved the Bonnie character too!

4) Male lead is making me rethink the platonic part of my friendship with my aforementioned bestie because have you seen Faud Ahmed's dreamy face?!

Sure it's a hallmark Christmas movie, we shouldn't expect much, found it very slow and corny and very obvious in my opinion you could tell who was going to fall in love with who ! They should have just fallen in love and build a fantastic Christmas story. And build from that,

The acting was decent The set seemed pretty great, but that house they filmed It at was beautiful! That's the part that drew me In the most the FLOATING stairs are just beautiful, made the background great with that fantastic massive door. It was perfect just made the characters stand out a lot.

Well that's my Christmas review coming straight out of Toronto EDcritic

Let's see those stairs again in the future.

This is a solid holiday tv movie. Script is well written. Apartment and Christmas tree is not realistic for NYC (that huge-a$$ tree would easily be $400 from the sidewalk vendors during the holidays... IYKYK). Acting is surprisingly good across the board, except for male lead who sounds like a robot delivering lines. (His character also doesn't seem like much of a catch but he learns/gets better along the way...) The podcast boss is the best role. Hilarious. Fair. A little drunk. We love it.

Lovely to see diverse characters in main roles. Did not hate. It's a solid B if I was giving it a grade. Most enjoyable with a cocktail or three.