Hotel for the Holidays

This is a multiple storyline holiday romance that takes place in a classic New York hotel, The Hotel Fontaine. The manager, Georgia, a lovely young New Yorker played by Madelaine Petsch, dreams of owning something and has worked months on a proposal to open a new ultramodern hotel to pitch to The Fontaine's owner who is vacationing somewhere tropical.

Meanwhile pining away for her and making her daily special lunches is friend and hotel chef Luke, who just hasn't worked up the nerve to tell Georgia How he feels.

Then there is the maintenance manager, Milton, who thinks he receives a secret gift from the bartender, Florence...but is really the maid, Anna's gift for her secret lover cook Victor. There is recently divorced Aj whose dog Dickens runs away and is rescued by handsome Hunter who is eager to help Aj navigate his new single status.

A runaway prince, Prince Raymond, might be the backing for the new modern hotel that Georgia needs. The other celebrity guest is a singer songwriter named Pandora who is trying to get back in touch with her fans by becoming an ordinary girl like them.

There is a quick talking crazy 12 days of Christmas finding hotel concierge, Kiki, who has been exchanging barbs with the bell ringing Santa all week.

This is fun, filled with Christmas color and was entertaining in that it followed more than just the main storyline. At the end of the day it is a holiday romance...so I recommend it to romance fans and holiday movie fans out there.

Everything culminates at the hotel's holiday single mixer which is a fun party idea to the accompaniment by Pandora at the piano.

(Also, can I just say I am so excited to find out that not only was Madelaine born in my home state of Washington, but she was born in the small town of Port Orchard...where my mom grew up!)

In the beginning it wasn't too bad. The characters seemed interesting, and I love the actress that plays the older staff member.

However the last 30 minutes of the movie made absolutely NO sense to me! The entire time Mena Massud's character was pining after the female lead, all while she pays him no mind because she is trying to sell the hotel, then out of nowhere she has feelings for him??

I got the impression that the housekeeper secretly admired the other chef, at least that's the way it came across, so when he's on one knee proposing, it made absolutely NO sense!

The only characters that has some sort of buildup to their coupling was the older couple and the guy that lost his dog.

I went from wanting to keep this one saved in my PVR to wanting it to be over so I could delete it! Just so silly!

Kinda dull. I feel like there's a whole backstory we're missing with the characters, like they'd just drop these mini backstories and that would be it. Also you could tell the actress that played Pandora was lip-syncing to Christmas song and not well. The love interest was in love with the main character but there was never any love shown from her more like a friendship.

It felt like all love interests were just dropped in and not because they were actually in love. The Santa was appalling and would make constant sexual remarks to the women which was just vulgar. Probably not a show I'd want my kids to watch.

Main characters potential is very high.

Mena already an Oscar winner.

Although the movie suffer from bad scenes, camera position, lighting & decoration.

At a lot of scenes you see camera tilted 15 degree and in the next shot it's aligned but then back tilted.

Decoration is very home set. CG is very poor. There is nothing related to Newyork in this movie.

Script is very shallow. That even the most predicted phrases is not said completed.

All other characters are not worthy of rule in school play. To much facial expressions, childish acts.

This kind of movies u watch by mistake at Netflix or "in my case" due to my wife choice 🤣

In the fairly recent "Riverdale" TV series Madelaine Petsch was cast as Cheryl Blossom, a smart, hard, mean, scheming person and she does a great job in that role. So I was anxious to see her in a quite different role.

In this Christmas-themed Canadian movie, set in Manhattan, she is Georgia, a smart, efficient, and kind manager of a small hotel with a dedicated staff friendly with each other. She is very good in her job and is working a side hustle, the possibility of becoming part owner and general manager of a new hotel. She needed to keep that from all the others for obvious reasons.

There are several interesting side stories. The chef at the hotel is interested in Georgia. An out-of-touch female pop singer comes to the hotel and hopes to rekindle interest among her fans. A prince from abroad has rejected his title and seeks to find himself a new life. And a couple of others.

Admittedly some of the characters and some of the situations are a bit too silly, but Petsch is really good in her role and holds everything together. The movie has predictably happy endings for everyone. So, while I can't rate this movie very highly, my wife and I were entertained. At home, streaming on Amazon Prime.