Flipping for Christmas

I didn't really expected much from this movie but I have watched the lead actress in other movies and found her to be tolerable. So I got my popcorn and settled in for some basic entertainment. And it was basic and totally predictable; well how many times have we seen the fixer upper romance plot?

I think so far in this season of Hallmark movies this is the second movie I have watched where the characters are fixing old houses. The other movie had a ghost living in the house so at least that added a new dimension. No ghost here except for the missing originality in the plot. Basic movie with basic characters delivering basic performance.

Abigail is tasked by her sister to "flip" a house his husband half inherited and sell it, there she meets Bo, who inherited the other half of the property. Problem is both have different intentions about what to do with the house and Abigail somehow has to fix that.

First things first, I'm now finding out Ashley characters is names Abigail. Secondly I still don't understand if she is a realtor or an interior designer and why has her sister asked this of her. The only thing we see her doing is painting the house, which I believe, as an interior designer, you have someone else do.

So, the plot is not the best. Some things at the beginning are simply dumb. (And some at the end too, they fixed the problem of the house because they "fell in love"?) However, as the movie moves along, some things do make sense. Personally, I really liked the leads conversation about grieving someone and how it affects us, going through that myself. Things start to make sense then, it's like they bonded over that.

I thought they had great chemistry. At least, there was good banter. The actors made this kind of salvageable.

Remember when Marcus Rosner used to play the main character's ambitious ex boyfriend who would show up to propose only after she moved on? I'm so happy he gets to shine as a leading man.

Anyway, I had big hopes for this one and was disappointed.

Don't let the title mislead you on this one. If you like Hallmark movies to witness a developing romance, you may enjoy this. It's really a traditional "opposites-attract", and, fortunately, they cast (and focused on) two Hallmark veterans, Ashley Newbrough (Abigail) and Marcus Rosner (Bo), both very attractive, onscreen. Marcus Rosner has earned a good reputation as an antagonist, and plays it well against Ashley's character, Abigail. She is a career-driven, big-city woman, and Bo, is a small-town craftsman, still reeling from a divorce from a young romance, making him a little disdained with the assertive Abigail. They clash over a house, that Bo partially owns and has an emotional attachment to, because his recently deceased guardian, Frank, had lived there for years. Abigail wants to rennovate it, only to "flip" for profit. They compromise, and decide to improve the home to decide the outcome, later. There may have needed to be some "filler" time, here, as a few script-free scenes were playful banter between Bo and Abigail, a paint and snowball fight. But, considering that Bo hadn't restarted mingling, and married too young, it isn't shocking he would "break the ice" (no pun intended) this way. Their relationship starts to warm as Abigail begins to admire Bo's heart - she sees his creativity (and taste) in finishing the home decor, without her opinion (hand-crafted), and his unselfish soul - he donates his time and talents to the community. Her heart begins to open and she empathizes for the town, when she realizes she inadvertently enabled her entrepreneur connections to develop the town. By movie's end, there relationship has believably evolved into a blooming romance. This is why I'd rate this a 6-star. In many of this season's releases, "Never Been Chris'd and "The Santa Summit", ie., there's no screentime devoted to evolve the characters beyond attraction. Your left being apathetic about the characters. I could easily have bumped my rating to a seven-star, but the screenplay, (ie. Background musical score), and most of the supporting-cast, was overly enthusiastic, which made the early scenes somewhat corny...

The characters were holding hot dogs at one point, then all of a sudden they had their hot dog-holding hands down by their sides and they stopped eating the hot dogs. In the next scene the couple are at the tree farm and the male lead is carrying an open wood tool box, but it looks like nothing is inside. When they reach the tree that is holding the ornaments, suddenly there are small discs of wood in the box and the character is pouring them out of the box into another receptacle. You really notice how little W cares about the plot, cast and continuity when you pay closer attention. My husband and I had a lot of fun looking for all the inaccuracies. It made up for the film having no plot. Which is what we expected: no plot. Merry Flipping Christmas!

Marcus Rosner is always cute. Very handsome.

Scott Yamamura is a good actor.

There's absolutely no transition from the bickering and disagreeing between them to the flirting. Like, what the heck happened? They can't just suddenly become different characters. There has to be some sort of getting there. Did not enjoy their story.

They have a paint fight AND a snowball fight? That's too much. Whoever wrote this should have been a little more creative with the flirting.

Ashley Newbrough does a good job portraying grief at the Christmas tree when she writes Mom on the ornament.

The main actors' attempt at chemistry is over the top and obnoxious. It would have been better if they were a little bit more natural about it

The father's advice conversation was kind of weird and all over the place. Wasn't into it. It could have easily been better written.

The scene in the back of the truck with three pillows was too over the top. Looks like he's about to freaking propose to her. But he just happened to whip that together for a business dinner? Get out of here.

Some hallmark movies have gotten better about having drama and misunderstandings that are a bit more believable. This one is one of the ones that still struggles to have a fight between the characters that is believable. She told him it was a innocent thing she did and he gets all bent out of shape. It's just too much. The fights need to be a bit more believable.

I love how this sister is folding laundry in a scene. That is just so real and relatable. Often these houses are just so spic and span and look like they're not lived in. So that was a nice small touch.

Overall, meh.