carlosleyequienabarca

OMG, I believe I am becoming the old bitter man of the stories haha, I hated EVERYTHING that Paul hated in this movie, and this comes from someone Obsessed with Christmas, but I hated Poppy, his aunt, and the whole "Feel good" moment by the end of the movie.

Mr Poppy is highly dislikeable, he is not just immature, I AM immature, he is a manbaby that probably has mental health issues and childhood traumas. I had never seen Marc in any other movie but I am so not going to watch anything else that has him in it.

I thought for a second "Well, maybe Brit humour is not for me" but it is not that, I love all Pegg/Frost movies, Mr Bean is the best!, I love David Tennant movies, I love Dr Who, I loved the British renditions of the Christmas Carol, I love the Father Christmas/The bear/The snowman animated films, I loved Postman Pat cartoons when I was growing up(and still enjoy it if I see it), so it is not that I don't like brit humour.

I just didn't like the humour(for the most part) in this movie, and particularly Mr Poppy, an impulsive, irresponsible person that doesn't think before acting; a 30+ years old man that acts like a 5 years old(and believe me, I LOVE children, there is nothing that brings joy to life more than a happy kid, but I don't act like them, I play with my little cousins and nieces and nephews, but I don't act like I am their age) and takes 0 responsibility for his impulsive actions.

If I had been in Paul's position, the first day with Poppy, and even moreso after realizing he was put there because the headmistress is the aunt, I would've said "He is either removed from my class or you will have my 2 week notice by the end of the day"

And then the "feel good" moments, they don't feel good at all

The whole video thing, it could be felt as if they are doing that because Paul asked them to, you know, for her to feel bad for him

And the climax of the movie, it just feels forced, EXTREMELY forced, I agreed with EVERYTHING that Paul told Desmond; YES Paul lied to Gordon, but it was at a pressure moment when a selfish jerk was humiliating him, so he acted on the heat of the moment to make him feel as bad as he was making HIM feel... so yeah, the whole Paul blaming himself for everything and telling Desmond that he(paul) was in the wrong, it sends the wrong message

I believe the intended message is "You were trying to help and I was selfish and screwed things up" but that is not the case, and it makes the message read "It is ok to be irresponsible, unprofessional, immature and mess one person's life because you don't think of your actions, as long as you had good intentions overall" it just says "It is ok to not think of consequences"

Just not a well planned movie at all, and it is a shame because ofc Martin is an Amazing actor, and tbh some of the kids are going places, like the scene where Martin is telling them it is all over, there are a couple of kids, particularly a girl and boy in the back, who are crying so realistically, it is amazing, but they are not enough to make this movie a good movie or a wholesome movie at all, which is a shame because there is not many British Christmas movies, the bulk of seasonal movies are American, so to see one of the few non-American movies be so bad, it saddens me.

The bads: First of, Alicia Witt acts horribly, she is not the best actress but in here she goes over the top so much that it is kind of annoying.

Same problem as with Alicia, is fiona, just trying to hard to look mean and evil, they both feel cartoonish.

The plot is dumb, there is no way in heck that anyone would not notice her being a woman, and the "angel" angle does not make it more believable, it just tries too hard to be progressive it makes it so not believable

Now the goods.

Harry is a great actor, he makes it so easy to like him, and adds that umpf to the movie.

The whole plot would've been awesome if it was actually known that she was a woman, and Bill believes in her but Fiona hates her, and take that drama from the romance, and the only reason she gets the job is because of Harry, instead of the whole charade thing, or maybe Nicky lying about something to Bill, something like that

The whole rest of the movie, the teacher helping, the little girl seeing how wrong she was acting, Becky not knowing, the romance triangle, it all feels good and the whole "Down on her luck mom that cares for her daughter and did it all for her" just... it is heartwarming.

Then the whole Harry leaving could be used as the driver for Fiona firing Nicky. Voila, plot made a bit better(not much to work with but could've been a bit better)

At the very least for those of us that have had parental issues, that is.

The acting is good, especially for a Hallmark movie, the only subpar(But expected) was the kid, who over emphasized his talking a lot.

The writing is mostly good, it did have a major goof that rested one point to my review; the writers forgot what they had done at the very beginning.

When Finn comes to talk to his sister, SHE is the one telling him to forget about it, to not do anything, that his dad wanted that and that they never were going to get anything, she is the voice of reason... then for the sake of the drama, which would've work without this, even better, by the way, they made her the antagonist, the one that will go to any length to uncover the truth that she denied in the beginning, that made no sense.

Despite this, the movie is still good by Hallmark standards, and a very welcome addition to the christmas repertoire.