Sotto il cielo del Natale

This story would have been great if it had not tried to use the same characters and settings as in Christmas Under Wraps. Made is seem like your love stories are destined to fail. Jodie's character was great and she portrayed it wonderfully. She didn't come off as a power hungry executive. She came off as a caring individual that genuinely cared about other people. Her character with different characters and actors , actresses and settings would have been a great movie. It was wholesome which is different for Hallmark these days, but this one missed the mark. Could have been a nine or ten star movie. Writers should be ashamed. Maybe Hallmark is just running out of material.

Andy Holliday, the character, was introduced in 2014 in Christmas Under Wraps, a Candace Cameron Bure vehicle. In that movie, she came to the town of Garland as a doctor, fell in love with Andy, and decided to stay.

Here a reference is made to that movie, as Andy tells his old/new love interest he had a romance with a doctor who was offered a grant and decided to leave. Jodie Sweetin as Erika is supposed to be a girlfriend he had BEFORE that when living in Seattle. Now she's in town to buy his struggling inn for her boss, and he's struggling with the decision to give up on all the work he put into it even though he's broke and in debt.

I wondered if they decided to "stick it to" Bure since she left Hallmark for a contract with GAF. LOL

The movie was enjoyable enough, but the out-of-town developer going after the local inn (or other business) is a very tired trope by now, and some of the scenes here seemed a bit over the top. Worth a watch but not a rewatch to my taste.

'A Cozy Christmas Inn' (2022)

Opening thoughts: Hallmark have done a lot of above average and more films and that has definitely been obvious in their 2022 output. 2022 did see quite a number of misfires in pretty much every seasonal block, but there were also quite a few that didn't sound appealing but were better than expected. Have never been one of those people who immediately judges something negatively. Have always seen a Hallmark film knowing what to expect while not expecting too much, but many have met and even exceeded expectations.

'A Cozy Christmas Inn' is a sequel to 'Christmas Under Wraps' (which this viewer did like if not loved) yet with Jodie Swetin rather than Candace Cameron Bure. Will admit to questioning its necessity, as 'Christmas Under Wraps' didn't strike me as a film that needed a sequel and sequels generally don't have good reputations with obvious exceptions. Did still see the film as someone who likes Swetin and as someone who has been pleasantly surprised by several Hallmark sequels. 'A Cozy Christmas Inn' is one of those that didn't work and was very pointless.

Good things: Returning David O'Donnell gives the best, and actually the only good, performance, bringing subtle charisma and easy going charm to the only character to have any degree of likeability.

Did think that the scenery was quite nice.

Bad things: Sadly, the good things pretty much end there. Swetin's performance is rather half-hearted and mailed in, and her character has very little spark. Same with the chemistry between her and O'Donnell, which is very underdeveloped and bland. Meanwhile, the whole supporting cast overact and come over as annoying hammy caricatures. This is including the usually good Vivica A. Fox. The characters are mostly dreary, oboxious or both. The exception is O'Donnell, but even he had a lot more spark before.

Furthermore, the script is weak. Even weaker than that for 'Christmas Under Wraps', much more awkward sounding and the cheese and corn factors are amplified. The music and direction are both drab. The story is too much of a tired rehash, albeit with significantly less charm and heart, very pedestrian pacing and a real over-serious dreariness. The ending is indeed a slap in the face, and undoes pretty much all that happened in the predecessor.

Concluding thoughts: In summary, weak and pointless.

3/10.

As a stand alone movie, this was really good. Jodie Sweetin was great in this, the supporting characters were fun, and it was well written too.

As a sequel to Hallmark's top rated movie of all time (Christmas Under Wraps), this was insulting to network viewers. The movie was filmed in a different location. They should have just brought in a new love interest or not had it be a sequel at all. Instead, Hallmark new leadership chose to destroy the integrity of the first movie by negating the happy ending and destroying the love story that we all watched in that film. I don't think I can ever watch Christmas Under Wraps again. What is it with this new leadership not knowing how to tell uplifting love stories? This has been an ongoing pattern for well over a year now. They don't understand their audience.

Typical Hallmark movie and holiday premise. What was most refreshing was recognizing a local Huntsville, UT business standing in for the Inn. What was even better was seeing real snow (as far as the eye can see and not just in the immediate view of camera), real snow accumulation (and not phony blankets of some white material laid down on sidewalks, shrubs and stairsm etc,), real snowfall (not the Hollywood 'snow' flakes descending from above; I mean really, what does southern Cali know about real snow?) and must admit Sweetin is growing better at the adult roles she plays. 4 star movie that got and extra star for filming during winter and not in summer pretending to be winter.