A Holiday Boyfriend

People usually fall into two camps. those who love Hallmark rom-coms and those who hate Hallmark rom-coms! I am more or less indifferent, but the wife loves these things and roped me into watching this last night. I must admit, I was pleasantly surprised. There is nothing new or surprising here, but it was engaging, hit all of the Christmas rom-com tropes and made me smile in the right places, I think! I can honestly say that I enjoyed it more than most of the movies that Hollywood thinks we all want to see around Christmas.

I'm shocked that there might be actors who auditioned and *didn't* get the part. Everyone in this movie is one (very small) step above an elementary school play where the kids stand in the middle of the stage and shout their lines at the audience. If I could have found the remote control under all the wrapping paper I would have shut it off long before it finally ended.

All I know is i had to watch all the way past the credits in case there was a stinger revealing that Jacob, the male lead, was actually a serial killer. Kudos to Matt Merchant if he was playing this character with a background of cold-blooded murderer, because he was playing deep in the psycho waters. Get this man a proper horror film, post haste.

Yeah ... this movie is NOT award-worthy fare ... BUT ... there are cute moments in this QUIRKY-infested sort'a rom-com ... that hits on some not-often-covered relationship snafus people encounter ... but most don't talk about. The female-trio is almost high-schooli'ish (why ARE these women *friends*!?!). Matt Merchant delivers a very complicated performance of a clearly very complicated person. Michelle was the MOST normal persona + wrote+sang a decent closing song. You will neither harm nor exercise your brain with this one ... but it is definitely worth the time if you're in for some exceedingly light fare. As the credits show - this one got by with a lotta help from the writer/director's family+friends.

Suspenful! Will the cowboy kill them all at Christmas? Can't argue with other reviewers here but I'd actually recommend this film because it's so freaking odd. If you sat down to watch this movie you couldn't be expecting anything but holiday schmaltz anyway so give it a watch. Trust me... you've not seen anything like it 😂. I have never before seen not heard of any of these actors and it's unlikely I ever will again. If Harlequin Romance was ever a movie? This is it. I wonder if any of this cast thought it was their big break? Hope not. If you're a budding filmmaker watch this flick for it's lessons in mistakes not to make.