My Favorite Christmas Melody

I was surprised that this was a Lifetime premiere. I may not always like their movies(more often than not I do), but usually they are fairly well done. Maybe they are suffering from what so many people accuse Hallmark of -- too many premieres.

The story is formula. Abby suffers a career setback in song writing and goes home for Christmas. There she joins a local music teacher, Travis, to save the school arts program with the best pageant performance ever.

The acting is fair to poor, although the dialogue and directing don't help. Mya and Rainbow Sun Francks seem to have a hard time connecting emotionally.

Early on, the band plays a number and Travis directs, but the actor has no idea what a director does. First his beat is totally off from the music itself, and his motions are just moving his hand back and forth with no down beat.

Almost all these movies start out with an obligatory antagonistic confrontation between the leads. This one is no exception. Problem is, the situation is badly forced. Travis isn't merely rude, he is overly insulting for no reason. I find it hard to believe anyone would go that far. Then the apology scene is lame.

The movie is sprinkled with plenty of music including what appears to be at least one original song and lots of repetition of "Deck the Halls".

Things at the end are mostly predictable. There is one twist, but an earlier clue gives the viewer a good chance to see it coming.

My Favourite Christmas Melody (2021) -

This film seemed to be trying to sell itself based on the fact that the singer Mya (Harrison) was in it, playing the character of Abby, but sadly she was really funny looking. Her whole style was so odd and her voice wasn't even that good and don't get me started on her wardrobe choices!

The story had been done before too. Abby returned to her Mother for the season and got roped in to help at the local school where she met a handsome (Rainbow Sun Francks as Travis was alright to look at I suppose) teacher, but this telling didn't add anything fresh and didn't even deliver the basic production values.

As such I just couldn't continue with it. I didn't like Mya, Rainbow was mediocre and it all just seemed too daft and not fully thought through.

My mood has been all over the place, so the film may have warranted a little bit of further exploration, but the other reviews don't seem to suggest that and I needed something a bit more joyful right from the start, because this was just annoying instead.

Unscored as Unfinished.

I liked the final song . And this was the only good point of this bizarre film because the chemistry between main actors is missing, the story is chaotic,Carson reaume is reduced at a good intentioned young actor ,Rainbow sun Franks is not the most inspired option for. Travis role and the twist is just pathetic.

Unrealistic is a polite term in this case because all seems result of improvisation.

The worst thing - the story is far to be an original one and bad served cliches is not the most clever option. But, sure, one of so many Christmas films, maybe more fake by others .

And, unfortunately, this is all.

I watched it mainly for Mya, hoping to hear her sing etc. I couldn't watch long enough. Switched it off during the scene when she's teaching the music class and there was waaaay to much poorly edited awkward silences. The lack of chemistry between her and the male lead, coupled with flat delivery of dialogue and actors I've never seen before results in me losing interest VERY quickly.

Wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't for the male lead being unnecessarily rude, (almost catty like) with her for no reason, as a means to create the "tension".