Era solo un messaggio prima di Natale

Love the ex-pat actors from Hallmark (Trevor Donovan & Merritt Patterson) but these GAF movies are super low budget and desperately in need of better dialog with very limited scenery. Even the Xmas decorations look cheap compared to the competition of Xmas movies from Hallmark, UPTV, Lifetime, etc. I devour Xmas and romance movies so I'm a conosseur of this genre and frankly after the first 15-20 min, I fast forward to the end and didn't miss much with this film.

I'm a big fan of the lead actors and the plots of their past Hallmark movies were way more complex and watchable compared to this GAF release. I know many actors moved to GAF to get production credit but obviously they didn't get script approval. This movie felt more like a low budget community stage production with a quickly written script than what I've grown to expect from other seasonal releases.

The basic motif to see it was, in my case, Trevor Donovan. And, indeed, he does a nice job . Good parts, forced final, fair portrait of Nana and some strange situations. But, more important, a pretty inspired start point , not too inspired used but , in good measure, acceptable.

I like it because I have not high expectations. A wrong phone number, the Christmas in Vermont of a New Yorker young lady, her boyfriends as autumn leaves and his father living between Australia of son and USA of daughter, family and a venerable couple at new chance of happiness and a burned turkey, a dog and a charming grandmother.

For a nice evening, good option.

I've often said that these Hallmark/Lifetime/GAC Family movies live or die based on their casting of the lead actors and how much chemistry those leads have. Safe to say, the producers got it one thousand percent correct when casting Canadian Merritt Patterson (one of my favourites, from ever since her early Hallmark days, through her incredibly risqué turn in 'Heatwave' and recent work on GAC Family) and Trevor Donovan, who is a sold actor and can always be counted on to turn in a good performance.

If Patterson and Donovan were good together two years ago in 'Jingle Bell Princess', they are GREAT here in 'Twas the Text Before Christmas', which features an inventive (if somewhat unlikely in real life) scenario that takes place over three Christmases (similar to one of my favourites, 'Four Christmases and a Wedding') and a well-cast group of secondary actors.

This slow-developing and pleasant movie is definitely one of the better Christmas movies you're likely to see in 2023.

This movie is supposed to span a period of 2 years, and 3 Christmases. But amazingly, none of the characters change in any way during this 2 year span. They wear the same clothes, I think Trevor has maybe 2 shirts during the whole movie, one of which looks very very cheap and poorly made. The character's hair, all of them, doesn't change one iota. A 11-12 year old girl, an age at which there are normally TONS of changes, does not change one little bit.

The restaurant scenes with the female lead and her father are exactly the same all 3-4 times. Same table, same background people, everything the same. Even though the several scenes take place over this 2 year period.

The movie itself is pretty boring. The actress playing the elderly mom would be more suited to play the grandmother, she has to be at least 75. She's fine, but unless Trevor is 50+, too old to play his mother.

Merritt Patterson is exactly the same in every role. Shiny happy face, no depth. Neither her nor Trevor are given much to work with here, just so so boooring, no chemistry at all. He is so wasted here.

GAF need to tone down their set decoration for these movies. It's always over the top and unrealistic. And doesn't anyone use other types of Christmas tree decorations? Why just large shiny balls everywhere? A women who loves Christmas and is 65+ in age would have a ton of more vintage looking stuff.

I really like both leads as I've seen them in other movies where they've shone. This wasn't the case. The premise was nice enough but the characters lacked credibility and depth.

After the meet cute, their chemistry seemed lacking as another reviewer said there was no angst. There was no pining, no emotions or longing just gestures. Found this a tiresome, boring watch to be honest even for this genre. I think the use of year in the life was wasted and could have been better captured though I understand the time limitations.

I loved the family feel to the movie and the settings which were beautiful. The acting wasn't too bad too though contrived at times.