Inn for Christmas

Mandy Leeds (Jonna Walsh) is a regional manager at a hotel conglomerate in Miami. She's visiting her grandmother (Jayne Eastwood) for Christmas. She runs into old rival Lucas Menzino (Jesse Hutch) who stole her rental car. The rivalry continues when both end up chasing after the same local hotel.

Their rivalry needs better banter. They are too nice and too bland. There is no heat in the rivalry and the inevitable relationship. Instead, they seem to be low-simmering and stalling the inevitable conflict. Then there is the hotel. They need an interesting looking hotel. If they're fighting over it, it needs to be the central piece. This is Lifetime trying to fight back against Hallmark. They are certainly not doing anything more than that with this one.

Yes, the story line is the same as all the boy meets girl Christmas movies but I thoroughly enjoyed this one. Jesse Hutch is one of my favourites. I didn't know Jonna Walsh before this but I will watch for her now. Old favourites Jayne Eastwood and Art Hinkle are an added bonus. Filmed in Hamilton, ON is pretty cool too. Close to home.

The Christmas Listing - but that movie was far worse and slightly different in that the leads didn't know each other from high school and they had to live at the inn they wanted to buy. There's also a resemblance to Once Upon a Main Street. After you get past why the two leads are thrown together, it's the same old stuff. The two keep working together on things and guess what - surprise - they rekindle their relationship. Don't have to wonder how this is going to end. The conflict was a slight twist as to how it was engineered and the lead's response to it was not quite the usual either. So it wasn't totally the usual. The last part was a little over the top unreal, but only slightly more than average in these movies.

Some things were confusing. Why did Lucas basically help Mandy and sabotage himself? That starts pretty early. Also I didn't think it was clear that Mandy not staying in town to run the place was a secret. Lucas knew it.

There was some chemistry between Jonna Walsh and Jesse Hatch. They could have had a little more screen time together. They avoided the usual animosity at the start and started almost immediately with upbeat banter and teasing.

While there were no great big highs or lows, I think there was the one slight surprise.

I wondered about Mariah Campos as Ginny Zee. There was a nice song performance. She sings a song I never heard and assume it was original although IMDb gives no specific credit as of this writing.

The usual ... girl goes home and runs into old boyfriend. They're still attracted to each other. Guy's old girlfriend is two-faced. Same old story line...

Twist: Girl is friends with a rock star - but I'm not really sure what that had to do with the story. Seemed like fluff. I guess the rock star helped bring guests? Never really explained why she was there ...

Jonna Walsh is just a tad bit too perky. Jesse Hutch is stiff. I guess that might be why they aren't "a-list" actors ... even on Lifetime.

This movie was ok, but very slow and boring. I don't recommend it