The Christmas Contract

Love this movie. Such a sweet story... but somewhat spoilt by the awful sound quality. The speech is fine, it's just the too loud background noise of what I presume are supposed to be crickets! Still well worth watching though!

The plot was the same ole thing: recently broken up girl goes home for Christmas, old boyfriend has new girlfriend, so girl brings a "boyfriend" to make ex jealous. However, it is nice that there are not the awkward mishaps with the family, the news of the pretend boyfrind isn't a family crisis.

When the real crisis comes, which WAS totally foreseeable, it was wrapped up in a touching way.

7 stars because the sound editing was awful. The dialog was difficult to hear at times because the music or background ambiance was too loud.

This is a familiar setup for a holiday story: newly single woman takes home a ringer because her ex will be there with someone new. Warm-hearted family embraces the new man and swaps holiday traditions.

That's where the plot diverges from the usual: there's no heart-rending over deceiving loved ones, and the developing love interest is warm, believable, and well-paced. There's enough going on with the other characters and outside events that Our Heroine seems like a fully rounded woman, not simply a cut-out with a cute hairstyle and a vestigial career.

Our Heroine is positively luminous. She sizzles in this role, like a young Cybil Shepherd or Kathleen Turner, without once doing or saying an overtly sexy thing.

Of course there's the obligatory misunderstanding at the 3/4 mark, that you can see coming from way back. But the way it's resolved doesn't involve either of them doing anything cringe-worthy, and does evolve beautifully out of preceding events.

And I'd REALLY like to experience a Louisiana Christmas.

Same old story - 2 people who pretend to be bf and gf end up falling for each other.

Hilarie Burton doesn't have much chemistry with her co stars generally but here it's compensated by a bunch of other co stars that are nice to watch. Cheryl Ladd and her real life Daughter Jordan are fun to watch. Robert Buckley is the writer love interest.

Absolutely loved Danneel, Hilarie and Antwon. And of course the special guest star: the family business beers! Well, of course Tyler Hilton too.