Let It Snow

A city girl not used to winter Christmases is sent to check out a resort her father is buying. There she meets the resort owner's son and you know what happens as she grows to love the snow and the resort. One good point is it seems really to have been filmed in the snow not a sound stage. Candace Cameron Bure is quite alright in this movie - not too perky not too cutesy. It is her territory the Hallmark Christmas movie. To balance things Jesse Hutch acts quite seriously so things are balanced out. Alan Thicke has a role as her father and it's quite poignant.

This is one of those Christmas romance movies that the Hallmark Channel specializes in. It stars Candace Cameron Bure as Stephanie Beck, a hospitality industry exec who is sent to the Snow Valley Lodge by her father to assess its profit potential as the newest acquisition by their firm. There she meets Brady Lewis (played by Jesse Hutch), the son of the owners of Snow Valley. From the start, it's an oil-and-water relationship, with no apparent possibility for romance.

But they do have one thing in common---they harbor no affection for Christmas, though for different reasons. Stephanie and her father do not celebrate the Christmas season. She lives in Arizona and has never seen snow fall. Brady, on the other hand, was raised with all the trappings of Christmas at Snow Valley, where they enshrine all the traditions and dedicate themselves to making the season special for their guests. However, family conflicts have soured him on the yearly celebrations.

Stephanie Beck is a role that seems designed for Bure. She does a convincing job of showing us the changes in her character. Though most of the plot is predictable, her enthusiasm carries the viewer along, to share in the magic that is Christmas.

This is a film filled with touching moments, guaranteed to satisfy true romantics.

7.5 stars.

This is about a wealthy young woman traveling from Phoenix, Arizona to spend Christmas week at a northern winter lodge in Maine. She works for her real estate mogul of a father who buys resorts and upgrades them to meet the expectations of a specific sort of vacationer: mainly the rich kind. She is not keen on this trip and wants nothing to do with the cold, winter, and snow of the north. She is as icy cold inside as the climate on the outside and it shows, because she is rude and unapproachable from the start.

As the week continues and she begrudgingly participates in the holiday activities, the nice vacationers in this quaint town resort eventually melt her heart. Of course she also falls in love with the owner's son, and he helps transform her anti-Christmas mentality into something wonderful. She finally accepts that Snow Valley must survive as something more than one of her father's soulless acquisitions. She has discovered a special kind of magic here, where snow falls and people wish upon a star, and little children dream of sugar plums dancing.

I enjoyed this nice little excursion and the feeling of being nestled in a snowy, woodsy, and mountainous wonderland. 'Let It Snow' brings a gratifying sentimental feeling like Christmases when I was a child.

Not a whole lot to say about this typical Hallmark movie. And to me that is a good thing. I'm kind of tired of the whole high-strung "grim 'n gritty super realistic" vibe of so many movies, and around Christmas I like my no-problem-everything-will-be-alright movies.

Hallmark delivers on that.

It's an enjoyable movie with actors that seem to really like what they are doing, and there's a constant undercurrent of a child-like happiness about Christmas. The leading lady conveys her slowly rediscovering of the joys of Christmas very well, with tons of odd 'n funny traditions thrown into one, giant basket, so to say. (just see what a "spinster" has to go through to see the man in her future in her dreams)

The Vancouver locations are fantastic. Snow aplenty, no need for fake snow, unlike some other Hallmark Christmas movies, and used very effectively for a bit of physical comedy.

All in all, an enjoyable (there's that word again) movie, and clean, non-convoluted entertainment.

So, is it sentimental and formulaic? Certainly, but what they do with that formula is something special. And the sentimentality never crosses over into corny. The leads are charming and wonderful to look at, but intelligent & thoughtful too. Filmed in a beautiful location with sets dressed in a lovely non-cloying manner, this film sets itself apart from the "regular" holiday fare just enough to actually be effective. I quite enjoyed it.