This was definitely not my favorite. In a year where Hallmark really brought forth some consistent quality in their Christmas movie slate for the first time in a while, this stood out as merely okay.
If you love Rachael Leigh Cook, then I think you'll really enjoy this movie. If you merely like her or find her more annoying than charming some of the time, then this might be a bit of a struggle to get through, especially the first half. Because despite there being a decent number of characters in the movie including a steady co-star, I felt the movie was largely a vehicle for her, she really dominates this movie. And though she has her good points, some of what is meant to be charming or quirky, just came off as annoying for me.
A note about the chemistry. I'm not all that familiar with Greyston Holt, really only know him from a Christmas movie he did last year with Adelaide Kane that was pretty good. But he was good here and Rachael play well off one another. They also very likely have pretty good chemistry. The problem is that the writing and/or directing don't put them into situations where that chemistry is showcased. They feel more like somewhat familiar travelling buddies that might eventually become real friends at the end of this than ones that will end up as a couple. Not the fault of the actors at all. This high school classmate setup is hardly new, so many ways they could've gone about bridging the gap between that history and a romance. But they don't start to make that transition until the second half of the movie. And when it does begin to happen, it's more forced than it should be, essentially a non-romantic dance and the cousin's wife mentioning sparks that we don't actually see. What we do see is good banter between the two throughout, which does work well in a friendship context. But what we are shown in terms of their budding romance, is rather tepid because it just wasn't made a priority until the final 30 minutes of the movie. But once they focus on it, it works.
But I will say, and a point in the writer's favor, that some of what I found annoying about Rachael's character was something she owned up to and apologized for and it didn't happen in response to something major or at the end of the movie, just something she finally realized and admitted. Kind of rare for a Hallmark movie, so it stood out as being a nice, different, more grown-up approach than we typically see. Her character became considerably more likable at the back-end of the movie after this happened.
This is not a movie to avoid at all. It's not bad. But for me, not great. And with so many other great Hallmark movies this year, hard to recommend making this a priority to see unless you're a big Rachael Leigh Cook fan.
