A Magia do Natal

This was an alright movie. I picked it to add to my Christmas movie challenge.

I like it when they go to little towns and it is all christmassy.

This now helps to take my christmas movies to 35 out of 100.

Will I watch this again? Yeah maybe.

I love a good Christmas movie, this was a little dull and obviously predictable.

So what the main character isn't into Christmas, seems to be very shocking to everyone, wonder what I'm missing?

When newsreader Lori Loughlin says on air that she doesn't like Christmas, she and her producer, ex-lover Colin Ferguson are shipped to Christmas-centric Hollyvale so she can "find her Christmas spirit". Can she do that when the town seems to be losing its own?

I sat down to watch this Hallmark TV Christmas movie, expecting it to be pretty much predictable, standard fare, but soon found it something entirely different. The script started in one direction and quickly veered into a mystery about the town and then into yet another one, eventually revealing itself as a meditation on what Christmas means to people in a secular age.

Although the stand-out role in these movies is usually some old-time performer in a support role, intended to please old geezers like me ("These young whippersnappers don't know how to hold your attention!"), here the laurels belong to Mr. Ferguson with his rubber-faced reaction shots. Well done all around!

The action that sets this movie going is this: A woman politely turns down a gift from a man. He continues to harass her for several minutes as she keeps politely deflecting him. He then gets so far into her personal space that when she turns around, he gets knocked over. Somehow, no one has a problem with the harassment. In fact, the woman is considered a bad person because the man lives Christmas, and she prefers not to celebrate it. Her boss even has a staff meeting where, in front of co-workers, she also acts like politely preferring not to celebrate means the woman is bad. No one even thinks to defend the woman and say, "The man was harassing her-- shouldn't we do something about that?" How is this a feel-good movie? The woman has to spend the rest of the plot atoning for being harassed?

Like many other Hallmark Christmas films, an adorable story, decent performances, flavor of cookies and the romance slice. A mistake in TV show. And a "punishment" with surprising result. Few small details. And a lovely end. A tree , a lonely man after a difficult moment, the deep meaning of presence in a town from North Dakota. And a just seductive, easy, off course, story. And nothing more but enough for many tastes.