I'd give it 6,5 stars but since you can't give it halfs and the other reviews were more negative than it deserved I rounded it up. I think it's pretty solid. It's not the best, it's predictable and fits perfectly in the guilty pleasure of bingwatching Christmas romances. I liked the cast the actress that played Tess was very likeable and real, not to overexaggerated like most leading ladies in Christmas romance movies. I do agree that in the beginning the romance felt a bit forced. Her tripping and him catching her and staring at eachother awkwardly for a few seconds, and the close friend side character telling them that they are in love(while you have hardly seen them interact yet) but the leads disregarding the notion. I do think they get there though starting at the thanksgiving dinner.
The best thing though by far in this movie has no to hardly any auto tuning and pitch correcting. Omg do I hate that in all the music (christmas) movies I've seen so far. They hire people that can't sing and then tune everything into oblivion till they all just sound like robots. So it's great that this movie leaves it real so that the songs and the emotion the actor puts in to it, fits in the moment it's filmed. Does that mean you can hear that Derek isn't as good as Tess, yes. But he isn't terrible by all means, we just aren't used to imperfections in recordings.
