Christmas Casanova

This is a solid holiday tv movie. Script is well written. Apartment and Christmas tree is not realistic for NYC (that huge-a$$ tree would easily be $400 from the sidewalk vendors during the holidays... IYKYK). Acting is surprisingly good across the board, except for male lead who sounds like a robot delivering lines. (His character also doesn't seem like much of a catch but he learns/gets better along the way...) The podcast boss is the best role. Hilarious. Fair. A little drunk. We love it.

Lovely to see diverse characters in main roles. Did not hate. It's a solid B if I was giving it a grade. Most enjoyable with a cocktail or three.

The new 2023 Christmas season is among us. I really didn't like last year's Christmas Reel One Entertainment TV movies. They were overall mediocre with several outright train wrecks. This one is actually better than everything I watched from them in 2022 season, and with some fixes it could be easily above average.

Technically, it's fine compared to the technical train wrecks from the previous season. They used NYC stock footage but not excessive, and in the second part it was basically gone. They really carefully shot in Hamilton outdoors to pass it as NYC, and I would say it was mostly fine. However it had a bit of negative influence on the overall story. Music score is a mix of nice holiday music with no so nice melancholic one. Few scenes could have a bit less loud background music, but it's nothing like was the horror in the previous season. And really important, it was clearly shot in the late autumn or early winter, and not fake in the summer.

Cast is all right. First time watched Kalinka Petrie, and it was her first lead role. Almost the same I can say for Fuad Ahmed. I would say they were good enough. Nothing extraordinary, but they had some chemistry together.

Directing and writing are passable. Because they shot in Hamilton, story had to go in the direction of showing less know / hidden gems places in NYC, and that was so-so. Also, kudos to somebody from production team who decided to use Audacity even it was partially hidden in the close shots.

My only real issue with this TV movie is a semi-fake poster. Fuad Ahmed is ok in the poster, just as is NYC in the background. However, Kalinka Petrie is fake as she never wore that outfit in the move ever! Why do photo shoot if it was never used for once in the movie?! I don't remember I ever saw something like that in ROE TV movie. Furthermore, she only wore very long green skirt only once for a minute in one scene (hotel room), and that's it. She always wore pants, and most of time baggy one which looks bad on her as she is pretty looking so why ruin her? I mean, if you are going with commercialized Christmas, then do it properly. It doesn't have to be an over the top like Hallmark does it, but at least do something. I'm aware that some women only wear pants, and most actresses do that in ROE TV movies, and they even photo shoot them for the posters, and it's totally fine, I never complained about it.

And obligatory don't watch trailer (for some reasons here is only posted shortened version) as it's the ROE one and for some unknown reason(s) it shows whole movie compressed.

Genuinely loved this movie.

Yes there's still the overarching themes you find in all of these MOW Christmas films, but there were spins that genuinely left me excited to add this to my yearly watch.

1) The boss. Comedy chops were 10/10. Absolute scene-stealer.

2) The storyline of a Pakistani man participating in Christmas with a platonic female friend + her fam felt like a true depiction of my best friend. I never get to see his background represented in these so I was over the moon.

3) Female lead was so fun to watch. I loved the Bonnie character too!

4) Male lead is making me rethink the platonic part of my friendship with my aforementioned bestie because have you seen Faud Ahmed's dreamy face?!

I enjoyed seeing ethnic actors for a change. The movie plot was fun. The acting was acceptable. I just don't understand why directors think a Christmas movies have to have constant music. It's like they had a closet full of soundtracks and decided to put a movie to it. It never stopped. Sometimes it was low enough in the background but most of the time it competed with the dialog. It's intrusive. If you have a good script you don't need all that music. Though it follows the formula of all Christmas romance movies, it was an interesting time getting there. Just wish I could suggest to all producers of Christmas movies to stop the music.

Right, well from the very cover alone, I figured that the sap would be extraordinarily sticky here in this movie.

Sure, I had never heard about the 2023 movie titled "Christmas Casanova" from writer Shannon Latimer and director Will Bowes. But still, I opted to watch the movie and give it a fair chance, as part of this years Christmas movie marathon. But hey, without any prior knowledge of the movie, I suppose that writer Shannon Latimer had every opportunity to entertain, bedazzle and impress me with the movie's script and storyline.

The storyline was sort of adequate. It was an okay storyline, but it just wasn't particularly Christmassy. And that was sort of disappointing. Yeah, the movie didn't have that traditional, and generic, sappy contents that make up the majority of Christmas movies.

I was actually not familiar with a single actress or actor on the cast list, and believe it or not, but that is actually something that I do enjoy and appeal to me whenever I sit down to watch a movie. The movie was nicely carried by leading actress Kalinka Petrie and leading actor Fuad Ahmed.

"Christmas Casanova" is hardly a Christmas classic, nor is it a movie that I will return to watch a second time. If you're looking for a traditional sugar-coated and sappy Christmas movie, then your effort is better spent elsewhere.

My rating of director Will Bowes's 2023 movie "Christmas Casanova" lands on a bland five out of ten stars.