Um Casamento de Natal

The good point - George Wendt and Catherine Hiks. Only for presence but the acting is reduced at sketches by script. And, sure , the slice of version of !A Christmas Carol". The bad thing - childish use of Groundhog Day theme. Because it is boring, fake and not so convincing. And vulgar in this case. The reasonable thing - the romance . A sketch itself, bad used, but it is not so not reasonable to say a good word about a film who seems just a two hours improvisation.

This movie felt like someone said "how can we copy Groundhog Day" and yet be different. Walking down the street before the wedding had the same feel as GHD but with different people and events. Learning new talents - again, same feel, but different talents. Same with doing good deeds. I absolutely love GHD as shown by how often I've watched it.

Like Bill Murray's Phil, Rebecca was obnoxious and even a bit mean. But she wasn't the only one so the annoying meter was dialed up a bit high. Yet there were a number of funny moments. And of course a love story. I thought the ending was a bit anticlimactic albeit necessary.

Having said all that, the movie isn't as bad as some people have made it out to be. If it didn't so blatantly plagiarize GHD, I would probably give it a 7 or 8. It's watchable. This is actually a revision of my original review and I appreciated my second watching more than the first.

I have watched a lot of Christmas movies in the last month and honestly this was one of the worst so far; I can't believe the rather well known cast members agreed to be in it. It is basically a very poorly done remake of Groundhog Day. The characters were barely developed and I didn't care about any of them. So much of this movie was just plain stupid and annoying, from the miscast lead, to the way-too-good-looking ex boyfriend, to the undeveloped plot, to the unanswered questions. The causes for the behaviors of the characters were never even explained, just a lot of vague innuendo...what a mess. Basically I wish I had the two hours back.

Marla Solokoff is so good here. The character is pleasant enough most of the time, but eventually she is really nice. But I liked her best when she was having a good time, knowing she would not gain weight or have to pay for huge purchases on her (former) company's credit card, or spend time in jail. Her efforts to improve herself and get her man are really enjoyable.

The cab driver is well played by George Wendt (who has several roles),

Chris Carmack is good enough, and he even sings, but not well enough for me to believe he will be a big country star.

Catherine Hicks does a great job as Rebecca's mom.

There is plenty of good Christmas music, but also a lot of what I consider junk.

This is no masterpiece but it is a pleasant and even funny fantasy for the holidays.

I love Marla Sokoloff, and the cast is all nicely chosen here, but the script and the directing just leave something to be desired. The entire affair feels gauzy, which isn't a surprise for a Hallmark movie, but underneath that there should still be some substance. In this case it just feels like they started with a mood they wanted to create and half-heartedly filled in whatever would produce that mood, without working much on details like whether any of it made sense. (Lots of it does, but there are some head-scratchers too.)

Honestly, it felt like a sleepwalk, emotionally. The key revelations which play a central part in the story barely made any emotional impact at all on the people involved. So the chance for some real acting to intrude on our gauze-fest was mostly wasted -- just about entirely wasted, in the case of the revelation about the past history of the main characters. Shame.

Still, it wasn't a bad way to spend a little time, if you like this kind of sappy movie. There are some fun moments, and I never get tired of watching Marla. 5/10 for me.