A Sprinkle Of Christmas (2024) -
My first thought upon starting this film was "Oh good another Christmas film set in a bakery". Why aren't they ever in a Greengrocers or a Butcher or a Phone Shop? Because actually that element made it all far too familiar, so despite the fact that it was a better put together film than a lot of those that I've seen, it was all incredibly predictable, even more so than the normal formula and meant that some of the charm was lost for being repetitive.
Libby (Hayley Sales) ran a Patisserie where Film Star Peter (Marshall Williams) was accidentally given bad service and decided, for the first time ever, to write a review on a complaints forum. As a result the two leads ended up having a back and forth on line as anonymous users who sort of connected whilst Libby also got employed by Pete to cater his Brothers Engagement Party, which also created a connection.
It was all fairly obvious how things would go but to support the leads, who were actually very sweet in their roles and had good chemistry the whole thing needed a bit of finesse and polish.
Brother Gary (Rhys Cawley) for instance was not the best actor and had weird hair. And why were he and Peter's "Publicity Girlfriend" Marla (Teagan Vincze) visiting the complaint website without having been guided to it for a specific reason? I would only ever go to a reviews page if I was thinking of going somewhere or more likely to write my own review of it, not just for casual reading and I'd never be able to work out if it was someone I knew based on the way they wrote!!
And 'A Christmas Carol' is not a heavy book in any way! Another example of writers not fully knowing about the things that they are referencing, which has come up a lot in my reviews lately. Also Christmas Trees should not feature in a kitchen! They are a Health and a Fire hazard.
And shouldn't Libby actually be in her shop? Baking for all the customers? Not sledging and spending an inordinate amount of time with one customer while numpties are running the shop? Skip (Ajay Bharti) was bloody useless and I would never have sent him to represent my company at the party.
They made Marshall look a bit odd too, maybe they'd died his hair too dark or used too much foundation, but at times he didn't exactly scream sexy romantic film star lead.
However, it wasn't bad and for those tuning in without having seen the 100 other baked goods Christmas films it might be quite nice.
It had a slightly less typical ending which I liked. Just give me more polish please because it is possible. Well thought out, Produced and Directed Made For TV Christmas Films have been done before and without repeating the same schtick too much, but keep Marshall and Hayley.
5.84/10.
