Mr. Miracle

Rob Morrow is a fledgling guardian angel. He has been assigned to help Britt Irvin get her life back on track after the death of her father in this well-meaning but distracted Hallmark Channel Christmas Season movie.

Morrow as the hopelessly clueless angel offers a funny performance with a squeaky voice, but his story of learning how to do his job seems like it should be comedy relief from the budding romance between Miss Irvin and William Vaughan. Yet it takes up about half the movie and it feels like padding. More than that, it seems like auctorial commentary, telling the audience how they are supposed to feel, whether they do or not.

The details of making this movie -- the camera-work, the performances -- are well done. Unfortunately, the script seems more about the mechanical operation of the plot and telling the audience what to feel than letting us discover it within ourselves.

The movie has no heart. For some reason the point seems to be for this angel, Rob Morrow, to get the main character, Addie, to "believe" in herself. Why? I have no idea. There is no sense of urgency or meaning to this fact. Now here I am at the end of the movie still not able to figure out what the heck her problem is! The main character we are suppose to care about Addie, seems lost, self centered and has zero self awareness and resents her Dad for nothing. You want to slap the character. I had nothing but irritation for her. Was not impressed by the actress playing her. It is hard to have any sympathy for her, when she had two loving supportive parents but does not like herself. Go to therapy then but do not make an entire movie around it! Rob Morrow decided to go with a very strange voice and odd take on being a new angel. He is hard to watch. He acts like a backwards person who walks around is a daze. It does not work. It does not even feel very Christmas-y. If you want a nice movie to play in the background while you work around the house, skip this one.

Despite a couple of issues, I do like this film. The biggest and most notable issue for me is Rob Morrow, whom I've always loved, but misses the mark here. His character is far too much of a caricature. It seems that he is trying to emulate Clarence from the 1947 film "It's A Wonderful Life", which runs along a similar theme. Unfortunately, it is easier to compare him to Dustin Hoffman's "Rainman" and not just because of his physical similarities, but because he acts like he is on the spectrum and has a desperate need to poop, but doesn't want to miss out if something exciting happens. I don't know if it was his choice to play it like that or whether it was the director's input, but it really irks and demeans the story somewhat.

There are many other films out there with a similar take on Clarence's attempt to get his wings and not all are successful, but the actual story of this one is really quite nice.

I do like the chemistry between Mr Miracle and his coach and it's nice to see the actor playing Eric being someone who isn't a complete slime ball as he does in so many of this genre.

It's a bit more of a redemption story set at Christmas, rather than a Christmas story featuring redemption as the only real festive tie ins are "A Christmas Carol" and the tree at the very end. Unless you count the fact that he is an Angel and there is heavenly magic involved.

I would like to see a Mr Miracle 2, which was obviously set up at the end, as that story interests me, but it doesn't look like it's been made or about to be made in the near future. I think it would have been more appealing as he would have learned to be a bit more human and therefore less cringey to watch.

Finally I'd like to say Tommy is by far the best character and performance in this film, I'm sure you will all enjoy him as much as I did.

Rob Morrow is a great actor, but making his angel character traits were awful. Could have done without the physicality, expressions & gait, & portrayal of cluelessness , which made watching it painful. The movie as a whole was good.

I liked the lead & the grinch-like school principal. The story & lessons on self esteem were good. The supporting actors were good.

You could tell this movie was made a while ago, when acting (blame writing & directing, not the actors, but green-lighting the finished product? Needing improvement.

Glad writing & directing has improved greatly, over the years. Mrs Miracle Christmas was better by leaps & bounds.

I thought this movie was fun and kind of cute. Unlike some other reviewers, I liked Rob Morrow's performance as Harry the angel. He brought a wide-eyed, goofy, naive innocence to the role. He helped you imagine what it would be like to be experiencing Earth life for the first time, with all its weird emotions, sensations and unfathomable social norms. I liked how he was almost always smiling and upbeat.

The romance between Addie and Erich was okay. It seemed a little forced and unrealistic, and I wish they had developed it a little more. Not sure why Addie had such a hard time believing in herself. Her low self-esteem needed a little more compelling a backstory for me to make it truly believable. Truth be told, however, Addie's story took kind of a back seat to Harry's. He was the character that we were most invested in, and Addie was important only in so far as her success advanced his progression as an angel.

I also read Debbie MaComber's Mr. Miracle book, and the film follows it reasonably closely. I think the book develops the Addie/Erich relationship a lot better, though. Also, there is more drama. For example, Mr. Conceito is truly a tyrant in the book and he attempts to get Elayna, who is a school employee, fired for being involved in Harry's class. He also attempts to shut down Harry's class party because it somehow violated school regulations. Details like this might have added more meat to the plot of the movie, but I guess you have time constraints in a movie and can only do so much.

All in all, I thought the movie was a fun and charming and definitely entertaining, and the characters, especially Harry, were likable and relatable.