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.