Christmas on Windmill Way

As part of a Christmas movie marathon here in December, I had the opportunity to sit down and watch the 2023 movie "Christmas on Windmill Way". Sure, I had never heard about the movie prior to sitting down to watch it.

Did I harbor any grand expectations to the movie? No, not really, as it seemed to be a generic Christmas movie from the cover alone. But, of course, I opted to give the movie a fair chance.

Writer Billy Schofield put together a fair enough script. Sure, it held components of traditional generic sappy Christmas storytelling, but at the same time the storyline actually proved entertaining enough to be enjoyable. I actually did enjoy the narrative in the movie.

The only performer on the screen that I was familiar with was Chad Michael Murray, whom has been starring in other sappy Christmas movies as well. The chemistry between the two leading performers, that being Chad Michael Murray and Christa Taylor Brown, was good. The acting performances in the movie were fair.

Hardly a Christmas classic in the making, but I will say that "Christmas On Windmill Way" proved enjoyable and entertaining. And if you like Christmas movies, then you should check the movie out.

My rating of director Don McBrearty's 2023 movie lands on a six out of ten stars.

I don't have high expectations for a holiday movie, yet I had a hard time just getting through it. There's nothing original or interesting about the story, the main characters had zero chemistry, and the actors sounded like they were reading from cards.

I watched this one with a few other people, and we all decided this must have been produced during the SAG writers' strike and on a low budget. We kept waiting for something interesting to happen, and it was really strange (and distracting) that the actors delivered their lines in monotone at approximately half-speed of a normal conversation, always in muted, whispery tones and with flat affect.

I don't recommend this unless you literally have nothing else to watch.

I love Chad Michael Murray. I really do. But I gotta say, I watched this movie till the end only because of him. If there was some other actor, I would have turned it off within first 30 minutes. The story is so so, but the lead actress... Very bad acting, wooden, no emotions and there was no depth. CMM tried his best, but there was no mutual chemistry what so ever. It was like acting with a wall. I don't think the pairing of lead actors was good and I think, she needs some acting lessons as well. As a watcher I wasn't invested in the story at all, because the lead female failed to make an emotion connection with the audience. Just bad acting, unfortunately and not very interesting script.

Or the farm; or the plaza; or the outhouse.

This is another save movie, and quite run-of-the -mill (sorry) It stars Chad Michael Murray and Christa Taylor Brown. Just typing their names gets me halfway to the character requirement.

I gave it a six, but virtually all of that is on Murray. He's the anchor holding this whole thing together.

The story involves a cherished local windmill which is being threatened with demolition by the development company Murray works for. He rekindles a former relationship with Brown that ended in misunderstanding (naturally), and begins surreptitiously working with her against the interests of his company.

There really isn't much new here. Brown is very pretty, if she's not a model she should be. Her acting is better than some we've seen on GAF, but there is still room for improvement.

I would not recommend against watching this movie, but again, it's just ok.

Decent plot but honestly the only reason I watched the whole movie was because I love Chad Michael Murray but it was truly a struggle to watch the entire movie. Christa Taylor Brown brings nothing to the screen and comes across with very little warmth. Chad is able to create a spark in just about any movie he is in but even he was not able to bring out anything in his leading lady.

The other characters helped to liven up the movie but unfortunately so much of the footage concentrated on Christa that I was glad when it was finally over. I will continue to look for other Chad Michael Murray movies and only hope he doesn't team up with Christa again.