Flipping for Christmas

Marcus Rosner is always cute. Very handsome.

Scott Yamamura is a good actor.

There's absolutely no transition from the bickering and disagreeing between them to the flirting. Like, what the heck happened? They can't just suddenly become different characters. There has to be some sort of getting there. Did not enjoy their story.

They have a paint fight AND a snowball fight? That's too much. Whoever wrote this should have been a little more creative with the flirting.

Ashley Newbrough does a good job portraying grief at the Christmas tree when she writes Mom on the ornament.

The main actors' attempt at chemistry is over the top and obnoxious. It would have been better if they were a little bit more natural about it

The father's advice conversation was kind of weird and all over the place. Wasn't into it. It could have easily been better written.

The scene in the back of the truck with three pillows was too over the top. Looks like he's about to freaking propose to her. But he just happened to whip that together for a business dinner? Get out of here.

Some hallmark movies have gotten better about having drama and misunderstandings that are a bit more believable. This one is one of the ones that still struggles to have a fight between the characters that is believable. She told him it was a innocent thing she did and he gets all bent out of shape. It's just too much. The fights need to be a bit more believable.

I love how this sister is folding laundry in a scene. That is just so real and relatable. Often these houses are just so spic and span and look like they're not lived in. So that was a nice small touch.

Overall, meh.

I'm still stuck on the money. Marcus' character Bo doesn't have any. Ashley's character Abby is there doing a favor for her sister. The sister and her husband want to sell the house they inherited and co-own, Abby is there to help make that happen. Bo can't afford to buy them out of the house they co-own, but he wants to turn the house into a B&B. Converting an 8-bedroom somewhat rundown Victorian home into a bed and breakfast takes a lot money for renovations, furnishings, decorations, food, and to hire and pay a staff before it (hopefully) turns a profit somewhere down the line. Where is Bo getting the money do to any of this? Even if we want to believe that because he is a contractor he can do the renovations, he very clearly said he doesn't have money for much else besides his current business.

Bo's plan seems like a screw you to the recently deceased Frank's family as Bo is not related to him, he was the contractor that took care of the house and a friend. Also, it is Bo's plan, not Frank's wishes, this is what Bo has convinced himself that Frank would want, when that doesn't at all appear to have been the case, it seems Frank wanted his family and the man who cared for the house to share in the proceeds of the sale. Bo says he understands them wanting to sell and get a house big enough, not to mention extra money, to care for their aging father, but also won't budge on his B&B idea. He has attitude for days, acts like he's a majority owner, not a co-owner, swiftly overruling everything Abby suggests in furtherance of her brother-in-law's wishes to sell the house.

This setup doesn't make a lot of sense. And there's plenty more that doesn't make sense, this is just one I'm highlighting because it struck me as dumb to not at least have the Bo character thoroughly thought his B&B plan through if he was going to be so obstinate about it. The romance is weak, not because of the actors, but because not enough time is spent on developing it. The "flipping" they do through most of the movie is I kid you not, just painting the walls so not sure why we heard so much about "design" early on. There's also an additional conflict thrown into the mix related to Abby's day job that just feels unnecessary. And maybe if the time on that storyline was given to making the rest work, this could've been better (and would've allowed for less time spent on some of the movie's weakest and least likable characters). There's a lot going on here and little of it is great. This truly seems slapped together and no one bothered to go through to connect the dots and make this a cohesive script. I'd love to know when this was written, produced, and shot, because it feels very much like they lined up a great cast for what was at the time a good, if not fully fleshed out concept, but maybe got stuck during the writer's strike with a flawed script in desperate need of rewrites and they said, let's just shoot anyway as is and hope no one notices this is a mess because of the good cast.

Well, I'll very much look forward to seeing Marcus and Ashley again in the future, they did their best with what they were given and this doesn't detract from their overall appeal. Both have done very good or great movies in the past and will do better ones than this in the future. I'd suggest checking them out in the other Hallmark and Lifetime Christmas movies they've done in the past instead of spending time on this one.

So after watching this movie twice I have to say I still don't get it. There's no reason for the leads to like each other. There's no reason for the lead to even be there. The premise of the movie is missing. The sound track didn't always go with the dialog. Why does the female lead fall in love or even like her romantic interest? He is never nice to her. The story needed more. Why does a complete outsider have so much invested in a place she has nothing in the game? This review is all over the place because the movie is all over the place. I can't say it was time well spent to watch it twice so maybe this is a movie you can miss.

Abigail is tasked by her sister to "flip" a house his husband half inherited and sell it, there she meets Bo, who inherited the other half of the property. Problem is both have different intentions about what to do with the house and Abigail somehow has to fix that.

First things first, I'm now finding out Ashley characters is names Abigail. Secondly I still don't understand if she is a realtor or an interior designer and why has her sister asked this of her. The only thing we see her doing is painting the house, which I believe, as an interior designer, you have someone else do.

So, the plot is not the best. Some things at the beginning are simply dumb. (And some at the end too, they fixed the problem of the house because they "fell in love"?) However, as the movie moves along, some things do make sense. Personally, I really liked the leads conversation about grieving someone and how it affects us, going through that myself. Things start to make sense then, it's like they bonded over that.

I thought they had great chemistry. At least, there was good banter. The actors made this kind of salvageable.

Remember when Marcus Rosner used to play the main character's ambitious ex boyfriend who would show up to propose only after she moved on? I'm so happy he gets to shine as a leading man.

Anyway, I had big hopes for this one and was disappointed.

Marcus Rosner has become a solid lead at Hallmark, and Ashley Newbrough was in a very good Hallmark movie called "Small Town Christmas" with Kristoffer Polaha which, like many Hallmark movies, including this one, involves Big City developers trying to destroy the charm of a small town. And a flattering bikini shot of in her in her last Hallmark movie, Love in Glacier National Park, was apparently the first bikini shot of a lead ever seen in a Hallmark movie. The problem with this movie isn't the acting.

The movie starts with Abigail giving a pitch to a developer planning to break ground and start pre-sales on 100 units after the holidays. Abigail is apparently a "house flipper" and gives a generic speech about how her mom "loved interior design" and how she "provides families with beautiful homes, while always staying focused on profit and ROI." But none of that matters if she's going to be working as a realtor on pre-sales before the homes are even finished. Nevertheless, she shares her dad's quote that "you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when you're done" (it's a line that's used waaay too many times). That quote gets the developer's attention.

And Abigail's willingness to work "24/7" through the holidays is what convinces the developer to hire her to be his realtor. That's actually a BIG lucrative contract. But as soon as she gets the job, she leaves the city and goes home to help her brother in law fix up an old home he inherited from Grandpa Frank. When she gets there, she finds out that half of the property was left to a contractor named Bo who thought of Frank as a surrogate father.

Abigail (who has apparently decided NOT to work 24/7 through the holidays for the developer) agrees to work with Bo to spruce up the home despite an impasse on what to do with the home. Bo wants to turn it into a bed-and-breakfast and Abigail's sister and brother in law want to sell it, split the proceeds, and use the money to renovate their home to give Abigail's father a place to live. It's set up as one of the movie's Big Conflicts, but it's really a non issue. As any competent real property lawyer could explain, a court would order the property sold. Period.

Also, Bo has quite an attitude for someone who a) doesn't have the money to buy out his co-beneficiary and b) wasn't even related to Frank. And yet he dismisses Abigail's suggestions, pulls off her action item post it notes, and insists on changes designed to facilitate a bed-and-breakfast as opposed to a sale. Also, what exactly was his business plan for the bed-and-breakfast? Was he prepared to give up his work as a contractor? Who would run it with him? And did he understand he would have to share all of the profits with his co-beneficiary in the unlikely event they agreed not to sell?

Not only is he a dick at first, Bo inexplicably rolls paint across Abigail's sleeve in what I suppose the writer thought would be a "playful" moment. That and the ensuing paint war between two people who have literally just met, is supposed to seem "fun." It struck me as bad writing. But, remarkably, the stars still find a way to create some chemistry with each other despite a story line that fails to support a realistic connection between their two characters.

There are also more than a few good scenes. For example, I thought the scenes involving the remembrance tree were quite touching. I was also moved by a surprisingly emotional and well acted scene with Marcus Rosner, when his character reveals his back story and connection to Frank. Bo tells Abigail "Frank used to have this quote to help me see things more positively: 'don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.'" It's a good quote, and though Bo attributes the line to Dr. Seuss, there is no written record of Dr. Seuss ever having said that. In 1899, German poet Ludwig Jacobowski wrote "Do not cry because they are past! Smile, because they once were!" Scholars regard that to be the earliest known version of the quote frequently misattributed to Dr. Seuss.

As much as I admired the acting, and a surprisingly creative ending, I couldn't buy into the premise that Abigail would suddenly abandon her business in the city (and her biggest client) to take on a renovation of an old home over an hour away as a favor to her sister and brother in law. And Bo's behavior towards Abigail in the beginning, and his insistence that the home be turned into a bed-and-breakfast without having the money to buy out the other beneficiary really bothered me. I was also stunned at the chutzpah of Abigail's assistant to contact the developer about a new issue without checking with Abigail first. And, assuming Bo was able to get his wish to run a bed-and-breakfast, and somehow convinced Abigail to stay in town with him, would that mean she would be giving up her entire successful business in the city? I hate when women give up successful and rewarding careers for a small town man they just met. And when did Abigail have the time to become a lawyer and look up obscure code sections? If she has the time to do that, she' should also probably review what it means for realtors to have a fiduciary duty to a client. She sure breached that duty.