Coming Home for Christmas

It's five years since Kate (Carly McKillip) walked out of her younger sister Melanie (Britt McKillip)'s wedding. She saw the groom flirting and tried to stop the wedding. Their parents (Amy Jo Johnson, George Canyon) are struggling financially and splitting up. They lost their family home which is bought by Mike (Ben Hollingsworth). Everybody is estranged and bitter. Melanie is hiding the fact that she's living alone in an empty house. Kate tries to reunite the family at the old house for Christmas.

This is a lower grade Christmas TV movie. There seems to be more of them every year. The bigger problem is that there is nothing here but an idea for a movie. The setup is somewhat interesting. The story isn't interesting enough. The actors try valiantly but there isn't anything more that they can do. This movie needs to start with a better script. Also the romance needs better chemistry and a better male lead for it to work. The sisters have a few good scenes but that's about it. They also sing which is their gig now.

9 November 2014. This movie is a predictable, holiday movie that doesn't turn into a classic or add much in the way of originality. However, the acting, the storyline, the holiday ambiance are all in evidence. What is nice about this movie is that its about family, sisters, reconciliation, and the holiday spirit meaning its not hard to watch, it doesn't push tragedy into your face.

This is light comedic romantic movie about breakup and a simple, but convoluted plan to bring a family back together again. What this movie offers is a nice movie experience that's entertaining that doesn't require a lot of thought. This is one of those date movies during the Christmas holidays.

I wanted to like this movie, and I did like the heroine, played by Canadian vocalist and child actress Carly McKillip. She and her real-life sister, Britt McKillip (think "My Little Pony") play sisters who get back in touch after a long estrangement, spurred by their parents' separation.

In theory this is a moving tale of family reconciliation. In practice, it tried to do too much with too little, at least on the head of the lead character. Carly gave it a valiant effort, but there was very little story in her character; even for a more experienced actress to work with. This is an okay-enough, even dull, girl's attempt at bringing her family together, without much in the way of struggle or more effort than talking to a stranger (eye-candy Ben Hollingsworth) who is only too happy to make her acquaintance and agree to everything she asks.

It's a bad sign when the subsidiary characters are given deep, meaningful problems that cry out to be tackled head-on and overcome, and then those problems are simply ignored for the rest of the movie in favour of our dull girl's dull journey toward a foregone conclusion.

All that negativity aside, the romance was sweet and developed gradually. The movie sets have pretty holiday decorations that mostly look normal family scale. And there's some singing, though not of well-known carols for a change. The backdrop, of BC mountains masquerading as Oregonian ones, is lovely to look at although the weather is suspiciously low-snow for a mountain town coming up on Christmas.

If you are playing board games or wrapping presents and want some background holiday themed TV, this is fine. But even a holiday movie fanatic like me wouldn't seek it out again on purpose.

At first, this has all the appearance of a low-budget Christmas movie and to be fair that is exactly what it is - however, it is a cut above some of the really bad ones like The Town that Cancelled Christmas. Some of the acting is fairly mediocre, the story though is quite engaging with likable enough characters and some nice scenery to enjoy. There are even a couple of well-known musical numbers to sing along to. You can tell that everyone involved in making the film has at least tried to produce something decent and if you give it a chance, it's quite watchable. One the younger members of the family will probably quite enjoy along with mum on a wet Sunday afternoon.

Coming Home For Christmas (2013) -

This film was just too depressing! Too dreary! Too badly acted! I could not put up with the misery and the grainy filming on the off chance that when Benjamin Hollingsworth eventually turned up he would be as cute as he had been in his other films, because quite frankly, which ever sister it was that was the narrator Kate/Melanie (? McKillip) was a whiney cow and the parents Wendy (Amy Jo Johnson) and neanderthal Al (George Canyon) were terrible.

All I can say is that if you're in a great mood and don't think that a film can bring you down then you might be able to get through this one, but I wasn't prepared to be depressed by a film genre that is essentially meant to be uplifting and bring joy. I got the impression that it was going to be all about the family's relationships and not actually about the festive season or even much of the romance.

Unscored as Unfinished.