Christmas on the Vine

This is another save-the-family-______(winery) plot and a consultant is sent to help. An evil big corporation is swallowing up all the land in the area. There are no real highs or lows or big surprises. The climatic conflict was created in a little bit of a surprising way. I thought it was out of character, but maybe understandable. The very end is abrupt with a change of heart coming on what seemed like a whim.

For me the enjoyment was the cheerful Julianna Guill. She and Jon Cor had good chemistry, but I think that was thanks mostly to Guill. The movie gives the leads plenty of screen time together. Guill seems to be in practically every scene and a lot of them with Cor. I wasn't as impressed with Cor's acting. All the supporting actors turned in decent performances.

See above his hair was so distracting the hair dresser for the movie should be fired

Brooke (Julianna Guill) goes back to her hometown on a job. She's rebranding a small struggling family-run winery. Tyler (Jon Cor) is the son of the owner and two school years ahead of her. She remembers him but he's not sure. Carla Kilgore (Meredith Baxter) is their powerful competitor who is looking to buy up all the businesses.

It's Lifetime Television doing Christmas. This genre is dominated by Hallmark. This is no better or worst. It's all pretty much the same level of background TV. You put it on in the background while you do other stuff. The one outstanding aspect is the snowy outdoor locations. It looks wintery and Christmasy. It's mostly fine.

This holiday movie was fun to watch from the winery point of view. There is always some enchantment in films about that exotic life that is so unknown to most viewers. However, aside from the fairly predictable plot and the charm of seeing how wine country life is not all that easy and glamorous, this film left a great deal to be desired. Julianna Guill is a really talented actress, with a welcome range of emotions, with great energy for her character, and with a sadly empty script to work with. She does her best in this film. Meredith Baxter is always a welcome joy in any movie. But oh, my goodness, the leading man was so hard to like! He was portrayed as an angry, reluctant headstrong fellow. One wonders how the leading lady could find him appealing and lovable. The quickly resolved ending seemed to come out of nowhere and made very little sense. But most distracting throughout was Jon Cor's hair. Was there no hairdresser on the set to comb his hair back out of his forehead? He is a handsome man and a competent actor. But one wonders why he was presented in such an unattractive manner, one that kept interfering with the viewer's wish to find him likable and appealing. His appearance took a great deal of attention away from the enjoyment of this film.

This movie rigidly checks all the Christmas Movie (must have) boxes one after the other but on the strength of Julianna Guill's performance alone, it's still enjoyable. Jon Cor's performance here was good, and the two leads do have believable chemistry, but due to the writing, you just feel like smackin the male lead most of the time. Perhaps Cor's hair styling was done intentionally to distract from how badly his part was written (moley, moley, moley). The ending had a couple of WTH? moments in it leading to an inexplicable happy ending and achieves the (feel-good) conclusion, even if you don't actually understand it.