L'appuntamento natalizio di papà

I must say, I really enjoyed this film. It had a lot of things going for it. The story and script were strong. I had a bit of an emotional roller-coaster with this one. The first 30 minutes or so were quite funny. I found myself laughing out loud several times (e.g., when the daughter was setting on the online dating profiles for her dad; the Aunt's Christmas party; the dates the unknowing father went on). The dialogue between the father (played by Jeremy Piven) and the daughter (played by Olivia-Mai Barrett) was witty and insightful into the father-daughter relationship, I thought. The character development of David and Jules was also pretty good for a Christmas film. The acting was great. Piven had a good performance, quite believable in his role as a father. Barrett was very good too. I have never seen her on-screen before; she impressed me with her performance here. The dialogue and relationship between the two worked on screen, well, it did for me, at least. The supporting cast performed well. The music was very good; some great music selection in this film. The scenery, props and sets were well done. You got to love York at Christmas. It is such a cozy and pretty city, a nice filming location. Overall, this Christmas film is a great. I highly recommend it.

There's huge potential in Jeremy Piven, anyone can see that after watching Entourage. The story and the directing was OK, the acting was excellent, but the atmosphere was totally ruined by the poor selection of soundtrack. The songs should have supported the acting but they simply didn't match the scenes and the feelings, at all.

It started off ok. Accurate father-daughter bickering etc. Decent character development. But then it slowly crumbled into a snooze fest that then turned into harsh daddy-daughter clashes and finally, sort of quickly, to a jerk fest with the dad being a jerk to his daughter and a particular jerk to a woman he knew from his past, for no good reason. He lost his wife two years before which does allow for some poor behavior but this movie seemed to be a weird place to flesh it out. Not a Christmas movie at all. It's a movie that takes place around Christmas.

This movie has some really funny parts, Jeremy Piven is funny and has good chemistry with his daughter played by Olivia-Mai Barrett, it's both strained and loving at the same time (which couldn't be more real). If however, due to the title, you begin watching it expecting a Christmas movie or Rom-Com (as I did), you're very likely to be disappointed. This is a Drama/Comedy, so if you're in the Christmas movie mood this isn't the one, perhaps that's why it's rating has dropped lower than what is deserves, for what it is. It's worth watching when you''re in the mood for a funny Drama.

I enjoyed watching this movie, it has an interesting story line and the acting is excellent. I wish the movie was longer, I think they could have added more scenes to add depth to story. This is the perfect movie to put you in a holiday mood and it is fun watch over again.