Homemade Christmas

Overall, this is a pretty ordinary Christmas movie with some mediocre acting, at best. It was quite difficult to engage with this film, especially for the first 45 minutes or so. The story, nor the acting, pulled me in, engaged me. The acting was pretty bad at times, especially in the first half of the film. The male lead, Travis Nelson, had a very awkward performance, at times. In many of the scenes early on in the film, his lines seemed forced, or rather, it felt like he was acting, which is never a good sign for an actor. There were glimpses of decent acting. For example, he had a nice scene about 40 minutes in with Megan (played by Michelle Argyris) when talking about his mother (being raised by a single mom). And his interactions and dialogue with Megan in the last half of the film were not bad overall. Michelle Argyris, the other lead, was a bit better acting-wise, but she too had some awkward scenes. She was at her strongest in her exchanges with Travis. Like him, she had some good moments (e.g., in the closet at the shop with the wooden reindeer). It does make me wonder where the director was when shooting this movie; it seems they could have used a bit of direction. The chemistry between them was fairly good. As I have alluded to above, they were both at their best in these cute and flirtatious scenes. The scenery, props and sets were not great. The shop was quite bare of toys, for example. If you are a fan of Lifetime/Hallmark Christmas movies, this movie might be worth a watch. Otherwise, you might want to pass on this one.

So, Travis was cute and he did have unexpected depths, but the character of Mike seemed like the better option as the leading guy or even for the leading guy to fall for, because she was actually quite annoying and her voice grated a lot.

I always like Christmas stories that focus on retail and toys in particular, because it doesn't matter how old you are, or even how much of a Scrooge you are, everyone has a memory of a toy shop at Christmas and a desperate desire for a specific item.

It must be tough to try and make a film about toys and their appeal to kids in the age of the X-Box and PlayStation. Even Barbie and Lego barely seem to get a look in nowadays.

Perhaps this difficulty is why this one sadly didn't quite hit the mark and while it wasn't that bad overall, I think that it could have been done a lot better. It is worth a watch, but there are others to see first.

There is a bit too much going on and too many characters brought in, which might have worked with better direction and storyboarding.

6ish?/1000.

As we've all seen Hallmark and Lifetime have produced some real underwhelming movies for 2020. Less moving moments, really bad snowy scenes, etc. But this one is the worst so far. The acting is incredibly bad, and I mean every single character, horrible. The toy shop guys, wth? How do they have one shop let alone try for more. Never any customers, but fully staffed and no one knows anything! Bare shelves, no decorations, really? Hiring someone to decorate a tree in a toystore is an emergency when you have 4 people in the store doing nothing, with no customers? This one is all over the place, no focus, just cliches. I had to struggle through this in hopes in would get better, it didn't.

Far from it in fact, to me it was the complete opposite and had very little to it. The 2020 Lifetime Christmas efforts did vary and often veered between mediocre and slightly above average and were indicative at times of rushed productions. But there were enough of them that were still watchable and more (was pleasantly surprised by some) and were not amateur efforts. Actually think on reflection that the standard was of better quality than 2019's batch.

'Homemade Christmas' though is one of the misfires and one of the worst 2020 Lifetime films. There were a few good things, not massive though, that are sadly outweighed by the flaws, with the worst flaws being absolutely terrible. Is it among the worst that they ever did? Not quite, but it is one of the closest the 2020 output got to being on the same level as the worst of Lifetime's 2019 Christmas output, which is really not a good sign.

Some of the photography was quite nice. Some pleasant moments on the soundtrack.

Michelle Argyris had her charming moments and moments of amusing interaction with Travis Nelson later on.

A lot doesn't work at all, with a big issue being Nelson, who sleepwalks through his role and always looks awkward. Argyris also looks uncertain and stiff in much of the first half of the film, and too much of the chemistry actually looked disconnected and stilted. Especially again in the first half, before getting slightly better later. Also thought that the relationship didn't develop that well at all. It feels rushed and jumps around too much and it felt underwritten as well. The direction at best was routine and the supporting cast did their best but were under-directed and were given very little to do.

This is also one of the few 2020 Lifetime Christmas films to not look very good. Most of the others looked surprisingly professional, but 'Homemade Christmas' clearly looked rushed. Most evident from the very sparse settings that don't look very festive. The music is too low key and not memorable in the least. The dialogue has no flow and has a lot of cheese and over-sentimentality. The story has a pretty terrible first half, which is very dull, contrived and jumpy and even when it gets slightly it is thin and predictable. Didn't care for any of the characters, all either bland or annoying and all not developed at all, Nelson's character is written in a way where it is hard to believe what anybody sees in him.

Overall, very lacklustre with some very poor elements but a few small good things. A generous 4/10.

I had to write this review. The actors are wonderful. The dialogues are very good. The DIRECTION is excellent and really evokes the warmth of Christmas. A really fun watch. My special appreciation to the director for making every shot look so good.