Noel Next Door

Hallmark's first Christmas movie of the 2022 festive season will be difficult to top. As bad a some of these made-for-TV Christmas movies are, when Hallmark (or Lifetime and GAC Family, for that matter) get it right, they really get it right. And that is definitely the case here as rising stars Corey Sevier and Natalie Hall star as neighbours going through things close to Christmas. Sevier as Jeremy, a Scrooge type of guy who seems to hate the world, is struggling from a stroke that has left him partially paralysed and separated, whilst Noel is a single mother (with a young son) whose ex-husband is marrying his mistress and wants his son with them on Christmas morning.

The chemistry between Sevier and Hall is great. This isn't their first rodeo together and it shows. Their efforts are helped by a very good script, too. Sometimes the actors are good in these films but are let down by poor scripts. Not so here. Sevier is particularly good, portraying in a sensitive manner a person with a disability. He is the star of Noel Next Door, and deserves all the plaudits he receives. This was a good one.

This Hallmark movie actually has a heart! The tough situations are realistic - guy whose wife left him when he had a stroke; woman whose husband cheated on her; preteen who is struggling with the changes in his life. I'm so tired of the superficial holiday movies that are all the same. This was a refreshingly real change of pace. Of course, it's Hallmark, so it's cheesy, but I really appreciate the portrayal of a disability and inclusion of some mild grittiness. Also, kudos to Hallmark for poking fun at flat-earthers/science deniers - didn't expect that! The movie did a great job being sweetly funny. Overall, I am quite impressed and this will be a repeat watch each year.

Noelle is a single mother trying to give her son Henry the best Christmas ever after an ugly divorce. One day, while working, she encounters Jeremy and they hit it off. Meanwhile, Henry is playing around the neighborhood and he encounters grumpy Mr Gear who is not so kind with him.

It's a movie with real elements. An ugly divorce with the possibility of a fight for custody, a mistress, a grown man with a disability and the consequence of that. A grown man passing out on the couch after a drink and a woman buying tampons. Never thought I would see that in a Hallmark movie.

I thought the character's relationship developed quite naturally. Which I appreciate. I would have liked to see more scenes of the two of them together, but the chemistry was there.

It was a good start for the Christmas season.

The novel was "How the Grinch Stole My Heart".

I read the Kindle sample and the novel does NOT start out like a Hallmark movie ... more like the now abandoned Skinemax fare. LOL

But this story goes beyond the normal Hallmark fare. It's not about abandoning the city for a small town, saving a business, putting on a Christmas parade/pageant/event, or the girl moving on from a bad boyfriend.

Instead it's a story of a damaged man and a woman mired in a bad divorce. It's a classic antithetical romance, but where the man and woman like each other in person but hate each other remotely. Nice twist. In that way it's a bit like Pillow Talk, except here no one is pretending.

It's a story of recovery and redemption, and it's one we're likely to watch many times in the passing years.

Countdown to Christmas is here and this is the first premiere of 2022.

This movie really doesn't follow any of the common plotlines other than a divorced mother having a conflict with dad over Christmas custody and that's really a minor thread here. Some movies in this genre have a hidden identity factor in them, but this movie approaches that differently. The movie is crammed with all the Christmas activities like baking cookies, snowball fights, a Christmas pageant, and so on. There are a couple, but it's not crammed.

No one is hiding an identity, but there is something about Jeremy that the audience knows from the beginning, but Noel doesn't, namely that Jeremy is the one her son is having problems with in the neighborhood. You could also say Jeremy doesn't realize who Noel is. It's a neat trick that the writers don't let the two discover that until way past the halfway point. That is a good scene when everyone is stuttering at each other.

Noel is an angel of a woman. There are several examples with one of the big ones being a spoiler related to her ex. Natalie Hall does a good job with this part - I think one of her better ones in this type of movie. She and Cory Sevier have quiet chemistry.

There is some humor in this move, I think Hall is the better comedian and Sevier more the foil of the jokes. The humorous moments sometimes border on the silly, but not overly so.

I'm disappointed with two things as far as this being Hallmark and they are about good old common sense values, maybe even call them family values. It is interesting that this movie has already resorted to this kind of values when Jeremy makes the jerk at the diner apologize to Noel. Why should he apologize? Because he was insulting her as a lady. Yet later in the movie there are two things I would say belong on the same level. 1 - Jeremy gets passed out drunk on hard liquor. This is a strike against this movie being good for children, which it could be. 2 - Noel lets Henry off for lying without any consequences. Given the situation, I could understand light consequences, but there should have been something. Henry went beyond the bounds of a rambunctious kid more than once and clearly lied. These criticisms have nothing to do with what many reviewers complain about Hallmark going woke in the past few years. These values have nothing to do with that, although lack of consequences seems to be more common among younger parents than it was for parents years ago.

This is a decent move. It is still something that most of the family can watch and it doesn't have the feel of a formula driven story. Some of the scenes are funny. Time will tell if I watch it again next season, but I think I might.