Christmas on the Menu

Overall, it is a decent Christmas movie with some good acting, I thought. The story centers around Josie (played by Kim Shaw), a chef who heads home for Christmas to help her mother (played by Cynthia Gibb) launch her new bed and breakfast by developing a (holiday) menu. To her surprise, Tanner (our other protagonist in this story played by Clayton James), who is a well-known food critic and has a past with Josie's food, has also come to her mother's B&B to check out the new menu. The friction between the two slowly turns to romance as they increasingly spend more time together (e.g., discussing food and their past) at this charming little bed and breakfast. As other reviewers here have pointed out, the story is quite ordinary and predictable. To be fair so is much of the Christmas (romance) genre. That said, I did find myself pulled in by the film; it engaged me. The dialogue between Josie and Clayton was warm and heartfelt and so too were some of the other interactions in the film, for example, between Nolan (played by Jesse Kove) and Josie (and Josie and her mother). The appeal of the film for me was the acting. I thought Shaw had a very strong, convincing performance. James too had a solid performance. He had some nice dialogue with Shaw in this one. I thought the chemistry between the two was pretty good (unlike some of the other reviewers here). Was it brilliant? No. But I did think it was believable on screen. The supporting cast in this one, I thought, was great. Gibb had a good performance. It was also nice to see Michael Steger (as Stu, the photographer) on screen again (I watched him in 90210 and have not seen him since). The last 10 minutes or so were quite festive too with a bit of a musical performance by Shanica Knowles (as Iris); it is a shame she did not sing more in the film. All in all, although the story was unexceptional, the movie was engaging due to the quality of acting. I give it a 6.5 out of 10 stars. Well worth a watch if you are a fan of the Christmas romance genre.

Kim Shaw, Cynthia Gibb and Clayton James do a good job with what they were given. The rest of the cast did a good job as well, but do to the writing (or lack of), they just seemed to drift through the story. There are no interesting subplots, and the story is very surfaced and one dimensional, so some characters just seemed to have no reason for being there and it showed. The characters lack of purpose leads to a lot of empty, pretentious dialogue which leaves you searching for the fast forward button.

I agree with other reviewers here. The acting in this one was pretty good, especially the leads. However, my daughter had to keep throwing popcorn at me to keep me awake. So, acting aside, it was quite a snooze-worthy.

I liked Kim Shaw's performance in this, but a lot of the movie didn't make sense. First, the ages. Cynthia Gibb, who played Kim's mother, looks way to young to be the mother of a 35 year-old. (Good for Her!) Also, the actor that played Kim's ex- boyfriend is 7 years younger than her. At first, I was confused by his role in this, and why he was working in such close proximity to Kim's mother.

The love-interest/restaurant critic was handsome but kind of a non-entity. And since when does a food-critic agree to only give a good review or no review? His editor, Pepper, was the antagonist who doctored honest reviews to make them more mean and better click-bait. And the food critic just let her do that without a peep. What a wimp. Where is the integrity? Also present at the grand opening were two nationally known reviewers who loved everything. If the little newspaper gave a bad review, it would reflect on them, not the chef (who was also famous and lauded in her own right anyway.) Also she ate a whole big bowl of Kim's special whip cream to sabatage her. And she didn't even deny it! LOLWUT?

This movie didn't hold my interest. It was boring, predictable and the lead actors had zero chemistry.