Holiday For Heroes premiered on Hallmark Movies and Mysteries' Miracles of Christmas on November 8th and stars Melissa Claire Egan (Audrey) and Marc Blucas (Matt).
RATING (out of 5): 🎄🎄🎄🎄
General Movie Details: Matt is in the Army and stationed in Afghanistan and receives part of a holiday care package received by Devin, who is under his command. Matt begins a letter writing pen pal relationship with the package sender, Audrey, who is Devin's sister. After about of year of corresponding, Matt gets sent stateside for his final month of his contract which happens to correspond nicely with the lead up to Christmas and the New Year. He will be working and living in the same town as Audrey. He shares all of this with her in a letter which of course gets lost in the mail. So he unknowingly surprises her at the coffee shop she co-owns in the small town of Branford, Connecticut. He helps Audrey enjoy the holiday season even though her brother and the rest of the solders from the nearby base aren't able to make it home for the holidays. When things go awry, together they, along with a very supportive community, work to continue the tradition of celebrating the heroes at home and abroad with the Holiday for Heroes party. The nugget of wisdom I took away from the movie was provided by Jade (co-owner of the cafe), "You can't live in the what-ifs, live in the what-haves." Seems like a message that we can all take to heart and embrace no matter what the season or what the reason.
Meet Cute Moment: There is something to be said for the awkwardness of finally meeting someone you know so completely. Now add to that the element of surprise when the person who should be half way around the world is in your coffee shop asking for a latte. While not really a traditional meet cute moment, I think that it still qualifies and actually seems pretty relatable to many of us.
Notable Knitwear Alert: Carlos is wearing a red Christmas sweater that has a fair isle pattern with reindeer on his chest in the scene in his restaurant. Festive knitwear is always a winning combination. No ugly sweater here.
Obligatory moment of snark/personal rant: My husband remarked that the main cast and the extras looked like real people, not just a bunch of super pretty faces. I also noticed that there was actually some diversity in the cast which only added to the more realistic feel of the community. Kudos to Hallmark, keep doing it and push to do it with more of your movies! Let's start by saying, I am loving this town. I mean they seriously know how to do up the holidays right - tree lighting, smores making, caroling, carriage rides, eggnog competition and ending with a party. Even better, they know how to spread out the festivities over a few weeks. You're never really told when the Holiday for Heroes party was scheduled but I feel like this community knows the value of family and this wouldn't have been happening on Christmas Eve. I mean they even have Santa at the party giving out donated toys to the children of the soldiers and we all know how busy Santa would already be on Christmas Eve. There is a scene where the leads go ice skating in a completely decorated rink and this often where you have to question things because how and when did the lead make that happen. Well don't worry in this movie Matt comments about recruiting the hockey mom's (he's volunteering to help coach while in town) to do the decorating. Nice save by the goalie on that one. Hallmark has done a number of military-based plots in their movies and the setup of pen pals makes this feel non- creepy as compared to some of their prior plots (I'm glaring at you, The Christmas Card. Just because you got an invitation to visit doesn't mean being basically a stalker is any less creepy!). I like that you see Matt working through his feelings for Audrey and also trying to see where he belongs. There are some scenes with his friend and former Army colleague, Tom, where you get to see him working through his decisions so the ending isn't out of the blue or rash. There are a few extra surprises in the last few minutes and the movie ends with a kiss. Seems pretty perfectly Hallmark.
Hallmark Movie Connection: Melissa Claire Egan is making her Hallmark premiere in this movie but has been working in television for years, including 7 years on The Young and the Restless. I hope that she continues to find time for these projects because she seemed to have great chemistry with her co-star and brought a realism to her performance. Marc Blucas was previously in Operation Christmas (2016) with Tricia Helfer, in which he is also playing a military role. Marc seems to get type cast a bit in military type roles but he's also appeared in a few other Hallmark movies and looks completely at home in those too.
I wonder if Hallmark knew that there were some "lesser" films on their roster and front-loaded the schedule with some of the B team movies. I guess only time will tell and I know that the quality is very subjective but my fingers are crossed.
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