'Twas the Date Before Christmas

Dating isn't working out for Jessie (Amy Groening). In order to keep the Chamberlain Christmas traditions going, Jessie tells her mother she will be bringing a date - only she doesn't have one. She decides to place a post on a dating app requesting someone to accompany her to a Christmas party.

Bryan (Robert Buckley) is the CEO of a development company. His friends persuade him to find a date on a dating app, and he happens to reply to Jessie's post. Upon meeting, they make it clear it is not a date, and that he merely escorts her to her family's Christmas party.

The Chamberlain family traditionally plays various games - or Christmas Olympics as they refer to it, which involves performing various (fun) tasks. Things get complicated for Bryan when he learns Jessie's best friend, Shelly, is a tenant he must evict before the New Year.

Yes, yes, being a Hallmark movie it is predictable from beginning to end, but this is exactly what you'd expect from Hallmark and noting more than to awaken the Christmas spirit. It is nevertheless a fairly entertaining movie, and Robert Buckley is so handsome!

I kept trying to figure out why I love this so much, when it IS a bit over the top. It's the great combo of fine character actors supporting two charming leads who have sweet, natural, vibrant chemistry from the start. There are many laugh out loud moments of light-hearted fun, which frankly, I could use more of right now. Family Christmas events have a fun twist on the usual tropes. Even if the conclusion to the conflict is a little pat and rushed, it makes us feel happy. What more can we ask out of an uplifting family movie? Love these two leads together and hope to see more of them in future Hallmark outings.

A very strong start to Hallmark's Countdown to Christmas 2024.

The fairly implausible plot line hardly seems to matter when you see Robert Buckley (of "One Tree Hill" and "Chesapeake Shores" fame) and Amy Groening on screen together.

They are both strong actors, and their chemistry is absolutely perfect - it carries the movie brilliantly. They elevate it from being a fairly run-of-the-mill movie to one you want to watch again.

It's great to see Groening in a lead role, and Buckley has been killing it as a Hallmark leading man for years now.

The story involves a family holding a 'Christmas Olympics', which gives us plenty of light moments, and the heavier ones are handed deftly.

I wouldn't be averse to a sequel.

To prevent her family from canceling the "Chamberlain Family Christmas Olympics," Jessie (Groening) lies and says she's inviting a date to the long-standing holiday tradition. She meets Bryan (Buckley) on a dating app, and he agrees to spend the holiday with her and her family. As Jessie and Bryan engage in eccentric activities like the search for the Christmas tree star, gift wrapping contest and snowball fight, they start to develop real feelings for each other. Soon her family begins to catch on to their secret and Bryan suspects she may be hiding the real reason for her unusual Christmas date request. As the celebrations continue, Jessie must work to keep all her stories straight and save her date with Bryan.

Firstly, it is rigidly formulaic, but the formula is applied sensibly, with no childish misunderstandings or extended histrionics, so that's a good start. The two leads ooze chemistry -what man could not have chemistry with Groening, right?- and their fun banter comes very easily with each other. Also the growing attraction is paced perfectly, and not based on one single event that suddenly made them both realise they'd fallen in love. The script is way better than a lot of budget christmas films, and it feels like this one has had some time spent on it. The direction is great and the sets second to none. The film oozes christmas, romance and family fun. Many christmas films aren't rewatchable because the story is just a one off love-'em-and-leave-'em plot, but this one is different. It's lots of fun and a few laughs too so I would be happy to re-watch now and again.

It has a warm and happy vibe to it and I am more than happy to give it a solid 6.

I am so happy to see sweet Amy Groening finally get a lead. I've been saying she deserves one for quite a while, and I've been vindicated: she really knocked it out of the park.

The story was fun too: a woman wants to preserve the Christmas traditions she has enjoyed with her very eccentric family, so she invents a boyfriend, finding someone on a dating app to pass along.

She brings him to the family Olympics, which is a series of zany Christmas themed competitions.

There's plenty of fun, and a lot of heartwarming situations as the family bonds with her new "boyfriend" only to discover he's actually a stranger.

This is the first of the Hallmarks for me this year, and they're off to a nice start.