A Christmas Blind Date/Frequency (2023) -
From the beginning this film was very silly. The best friend Maya (Casey Hodge) was an idiot, the boss Brooke (Denise Richards) was annoying and Ben's best friend Liam (Edward Lewis French) was aggravating too. Why do the British stand out so much in these films?
Not to mention the irritating boss, Mark (John F. Henry II). And what was with Ben's Mother Judy (Iris Anthony)??
I feel that they either need to make these films full comedy or lighthearted drama, not a half and half of both, because dropping in daft characters amongst the two leads who aren't hamming it up ultimately just jars it all.
To start with Kenzie (Ansley Gordon) was at least relatable as a person, although her behaviour let her down and was hard to believe towards the end.
And even though Jonathan Stoddard as Ben was sort of cute, if a bit sleepy looking, he was easy to connect with as well and a nice guy to boot, who didn't deserve to be mistreated so badly.
As Kenzie tried to set up Brooke on blind dates and Ben got mixed up in the attempt the story got a bit convoluted, which let it down a bit and I did feel that Ben forgave a lot easier than I would have. I thought that it was probably an attempt to create a love V (It's not a triangle unless they all fancy someone different) in order to vary the standard story slightly, but for me it just made the main connection a bit weak.
Other than that I had to wonder what had happened to Denise's voice??? She actually seemed like a 70 year old with loads of plastic surgery, not because of how she looked, but how she was acting and moving. It didn't help that her character wasn't particularly likeable and I did question if she was worthy of Todd played by James Hyde.
I also felt that some of the wardrobe choices were terrible and who tied the ties??? I hope someone got fired for that!
Overall it was all fairly predictable as I had expected, but it was sweet enough I supposed. I might not rush back to see it again, but give me ten years or so and I probably wouldn't say no to trying again.
6.09/10.
