This is a slight twist on the contest premise in that the contest part is over quickly and it become a kind of gala with Carmen and Jax looking to impress critics to provide future opportunities for their careers.
Camila Banus portrays an appealing Carmen with one major flaw. She has none of the discipline which is essential for an executive chef. This gets obscured by the fact that she is only the Pastry Chef, but that's confusing also because she is supposed to be "equal" to Jax, the executive chef. Throw in all the rabbit trails she leads Jax on and the entire thing comes off as an unprofessional enterprise. Since I am detail oriented, this atmosphere bothered me throughout the movie and I was certain of what would be the conflict in the story.
I said Carmen is appealing and you can tell Jax is falling under her spell. Banus has good energy and Carmen's tendency to dance while doing other things adds some playful fun to the story. Banus and Mark Hapka have good chemistry. They are given plenty of screen time together to develop their relationship.
The acting is good. The dialogue is good but not sparkling. There are no great highs or lows.
I often say about these movies that they don't deal well with reality. In this case, it seemed that reality was stretched to the point of fantasy. Carmen had no business being in the situation she was in, and she knew it at least in the beginning. It just occurred to me that perhaps it is like a Little League coach being put in charge of a Major League team for the playoffs. Baseball is baseball, but the two situations are worlds apart and you can't instantly jump from one to the other.
For my rating, Carmen's energy and appeal are a wash with the impossibility of her situation. The relationship is nice. We're left with a fairly average Christmas movie.
