Hotel for the Holidays

Tradition requires watching cheesy romantic Christmas movies and this one fits the bill very well. The acting is not horrible, though there are some cringe moments. We see quite a few familiar faces, so that makes it fun. Some surprising moments keep you interested.

The plot is a bit predictable, but it is a cheesy Christmas movie, so that's to be expected.

Some moments were really bad. The most cringe was when Santa lost his beard and all of a sudden he was a heartthrob. In the video calls, the "beach" was as fake as the French accent. But if you can look past the fake snow and the predictable plot, you'll find a delightful movie to fill in those designated hours for the "Hallmark Christmas movie" experience.

In the fairly recent "Riverdale" TV series Madelaine Petsch was cast as Cheryl Blossom, a smart, hard, mean, scheming person and she does a great job in that role. So I was anxious to see her in a quite different role.

In this Christmas-themed Canadian movie, set in Manhattan, she is Georgia, a smart, efficient, and kind manager of a small hotel with a dedicated staff friendly with each other. She is very good in her job and is working a side hustle, the possibility of becoming part owner and general manager of a new hotel. She needed to keep that from all the others for obvious reasons.

There are several interesting side stories. The chef at the hotel is interested in Georgia. An out-of-touch female pop singer comes to the hotel and hopes to rekindle interest among her fans. A prince from abroad has rejected his title and seeks to find himself a new life. And a couple of others.

Admittedly some of the characters and some of the situations are a bit too silly, but Petsch is really good in her role and holds everything together. The movie has predictably happy endings for everyone. So, while I can't rate this movie very highly, my wife and I were entertained. At home, streaming on Amazon Prime.

Main characters potential is very high.

Mena already an Oscar winner.

Although the movie suffer from bad scenes, camera position, lighting & decoration.

At a lot of scenes you see camera tilted 15 degree and in the next shot it's aligned but then back tilted.

Decoration is very home set. CG is very poor. There is nothing related to Newyork in this movie.

Script is very shallow. That even the most predicted phrases is not said completed.

All other characters are not worthy of rule in school play. To much facial expressions, childish acts.

This kind of movies u watch by mistake at Netflix or "in my case" due to my wife choice 🤣

Kinda dull. I feel like there's a whole backstory we're missing with the characters, like they'd just drop these mini backstories and that would be it. Also you could tell the actress that played Pandora was lip-syncing to Christmas song and not well. The love interest was in love with the main character but there was never any love shown from her more like a friendship.

It felt like all love interests were just dropped in and not because they were actually in love. The Santa was appalling and would make constant sexual remarks to the women which was just vulgar. Probably not a show I'd want my kids to watch.

This movie is a family film. No violence, sex, or curse words. Children 5 to 10 might like it. Kids under 5 probably won't be interested. But it won't hurt them if playing in the background.

It's extremely silly and unrealistic. Adults won't like it. Even teenagers will roll their eyes at it's simple unrealistic premise.

• The whole movie is based on unrealistic silly misunderstandings.

• All the adults in the film are very sophisticated socially and occupationally. But they have absolutely no social skills when it comes to dating or relationships. It's as if they're all virgins who have never had a date in their lives.

• And as professionally sophisticated as the main character Georgia is. And as much as she depends on her cellphone, you would think she would have some portable chargers in her purse.

• I've never heard of a hotel whose doors only open and close with an app.

• New York City is portrayed as a small town where strangers continually bump into each other on the street.

But children 5 to 10 won't care about that. And hopefully as they grow up, they'll realize the difference between silly family fiction, and reality.