A Christmas Miracle premiered on Hallmark Movies and Mysteries' Miracles of Christmas on November 14th and stars Tamera Mowry-Housley (Emma) and Brooks Darnell (Marcus). Barry Bostwick appears in a supporting role as Santa Dean.
RATING (out of 5): 🎄 A little insight here, my husband said that if I finish watching the movie then it deserves at least one star. I do have to say that I stopped the movie with about 17 minutes remaining to grab some dinner (and catch Disney +) so you can say that I really wasn't drawn into the story.
General Movie Details: Emma is a divorcee and single mom who just moved to Denver from Savannah for a new job as the Executive Assistant to the editor of a magazine (Daily Lifestyle Magazine). She has a background in journalism and pitches a story for the big Christmas issue for Real Life Christmas Miracles. Needless to say her boss steals her idea and she and her photographer colleague, Marcus, search for their own Christmas Miracle story to turn the tables on Valerie (the editor) and expose her.
Meet Cute Moment: Emma decided that 1 week after starting a new job that she should give everyone in the office mini Christmas trees that light up for their desks. So she tried to give one to Marcus but he didn't want one and they had a bit of a tete-a-tete before one of his friends came in and Emma gave the tree to him.
Giant Nutcracker Sighting: There was a Nutcracker sighting outside the theater where Sissy is performing.
Obligatory moment of snark/personal rant: So my favorite moment was when Marcus commented on the reindeer cookies and said, "I think these are going to sleigh (slay)." There you go that is the best there was to be had. I had a major issue with the timing in this movie. The characters work at a magazine which I am not sure about the actual issue frequency as it doesn't appear to be daily despite the name so maybe it's weekly. Either way, at the start of the movie there are already decorations everywhere you look which to me signals that we are at least at Thanksgiving time. Don't get me started on the fact that her son is already on holiday break until the new year which must mean that they are on a year-round calendar (PS Denver Public Schools are not, I looked). So if the Christmas issue of the magazine is so important, why wouldn't they have started planning and pitching story ideas for the features and the cover story for THIS year's issue before the post-Thanksgiving timeframe? Do they work with a printer with the capability to instantaneously print and deliver the magazine? I mean I know that monthly magazine's are usually working at least 3-6 months in advance of the publication date so they are usually thinking snow and Christmas during summer and fall so this must published more frequently but REALLY?!? Either way, I did find the timing of everything to be a distraction from the start. I mean Valerie (evil editor) says Merry Christmas to Emma and Marcus in the lobby right after meeting going over the Christmas issue layout. And yet based on a passing remark at the Christmas Eve jazz concert in the park (yep, they went there too) to reunite Santa Dean with his daughter, the Christmas issue was released a week before Christmas Eve. Now let's move on to the fact that Emma's new boss stole her idea and passed it off as her own and we see about 1 minute devoted to that confrontation/resolution but it is Christmas so everything works out in the end and everyone is forgiven and believed to have more integrity then they themselves feel they have and display. Finally, the snippet of the Christmas Eve concert where daughter and father are reunited sounded terrible. I mean the musical soundtrack, if they are really supposed to be professional musicians it really should have sounded better. There you have it... There was very little character development or backstory provided for the main characters. I really had no vested interest in whether or not Santa Dean's reunion happened. I don't think that I would classify a wish for a family reunion and a musical group reunion for a Christmas concert to be a "Real Live Christmas Miracle", but that might just be me.
Hallmark Movie Connection: It appears that this is the first Hallmark movie for both Tamera Mowry-Housley and Brooks Darell. Tamera was well know for starring in a sitcom with her twin sister Tia in the 90's and Brooks appears to be a regular cast member on The Young and the Restless.
I hope that if you watched this movie, you enjoyed it more than me because the only miracle for me was finishing it.
No comments:
Post a Comment