Unwrapping Christmas: Olivia's Reunion

Hallmark should really be careful with the use of AI to write its scripts. This one was terrible.

No chemistry, no humor, barely any holiday mood and (even) more predictable than usual. The actor tried his best and showed some charm; the actress was a disaster virtually expressionless and a negative attitude most of the time.

Not worth watching.

Like other reviewers, I didn't see the chemistry between the two leads. But what bothered me the most was the casting of the mother and father of an actor who is in reality 38 years old. Neither actor who played mom or dad lists their age on IMDB, but it's a stretch to imagine either the son as a 20-something, or Susan Haman and Scott Gibson as age-appropriate to portray his parents.

Scott did a great job in a kind of thankless role as the spurned boyfriend in 2016's "A Very Merry Mix-Up." To see him eight years later playing this kind of role is crazy... older brother, maybe. Not Dad. Hallmark needs to use their 40ish actors (male and female) in roles that reflect their age and experience. The real actors have spouses and kids... stop having their characters act as if they've never been in love or had real life experience. Or use real 20-something actors for these kinds of roles.

This is the story of one of the Gift Wrapping Shop co-owners, Olivia (Cindy Busby) who delivers an order of wrapped gifts and gets snowed in by a blizzard with her ex-boyfriend, Ben (Jake Epstein).

The plot is so predictable. As expected, their views of each change from a very disliking of each other to romance and seeing talents and skills in each other that they missed the first go around. Much like the characters trapped in the bluzzard, you get cabin fever as the storyline deadlines and there's little to hold your interest unless your thing is broken radiators, food supply running out, and getting firewood to try to keep the cabin warm. To add some comedy there are a series of mishaps involving the other shop co-owners taking care of Olivia's dog while she's away. The dog is cute. And to add to an already bad plot, there's also Ben's mother, who is stuck at a ski lodge, who is very curt and annoying that keeps checking in on Ben. THIS MOVIE IS HO HUM AND A WASTE OF TIME.

7.3 stars.

Best of the four in the series as far as I'm concerned. The reason is because it's simple and homey. This is not a glitzy story about city dwellers and all the frilly Christmas stuff. This is not about selling chocolate and candy and cards. We all know it's about sales, yes, but not as obvious as the first and third in the series.

This is an actual romance for the emotion and joy of love, and not about gingerbread and tree trimming. And the co-star male actually is a real man with a personality, unlike the first three installments in the series; which have forgettable male leads. I'm glad they gave this fellow a personality and some charisma.

As the story goes, one of the four unwrapped ladies (Busby), is stranded in a vacation cabin with her ex-boyfriend for a few days over the holidays. How they got in this predicament is a long story.

The theme is about mending failed relationships and rekindling the spark. We eventually learn why they broke up years ago, why he left town and why she didn't follow him.

It's not a bad film. This is a good old-fashioned love story between two likable Hallmark characters. Sure, it's somewhat average for the genre, but compared to the other three unwrapping stories, this is a breath of fresh air.

Too much fake snow for my liking, but otherwise a good little adventure.

I had just sat through the 2024 movie "Unwrapping Christmas: Tina's Miracle" which proved to be a surprisingly enjoyable movie, and thus I opted to carry on and watch the 2024 movie "Unwrapping Christmas: Olivia's Reunion", hoping it would be as enjoyable.

However, I have to say that it wasn't. Nay, "Unwrapping Christmas: Olivia's Reunion" was a rather generic and bland viewing experience. Writer T. Booker James just didn't manage to pen down a particularly enjoyable script. Sure, if you gobble up all these sappy Christmas movies, you might disagree with me, but if you're looking for a movie with more than straight-out-of-the-how-to-make-a-sappy-Christmas-movie-guidebook, then "Unwrapping Christmas: Olivia's Reunion" just didn't cut it.

Sure, it was nice to see some of the cast from "Unwrapping Christmas: Tina's Miracle" in the movie as well, making them intertwined. The acting performances in "Unwrapping Christmas: Olivia's Reunion" were fair, despite the fact that the script wasn't my cup of eggnog.

This is definitely not a movie that I will be returning to watch a second time, as it was boring enough the first time around.

My rating of director Max McGuire's 2024 movie "Unwrapping Christmas: Olivia's Reunion" lands on a four out of ten stars.