Angel Falls: A Novel Holiday premiered on Hallmark Movies and Mysteries' Miracles of Christmas on December 15th and stars Jen Lilley (Hannah) and Carlo Marks (Ryan).
RATING (out of 5): 🎄🎄
General Movie Details: Hannah is a book editor in Angel Falls at her family's small publishing house. Ryan also works in book publishing in NY and is home in Angel Falls to settle some things for his parent's estate. Based on his experience in the industry, Hannah's mom hires him as a consultant to review and suggest expansion plans for their firm. This forces Hannah and Ryan to work together which Hannah does not look forward to.
Giant Nutcracker Sighting: There are giant Nutcracker panels at the town tree plaza.
Costuming Notes: Both Ryan and Hannah have some great sweaters throughout the movie. Hannah has several coats that she wears over the course of the movie which makes sense but Ryan also wears at least 4 different winter coats. Seeing as Ryan was hoping to be in town for only a few days I find packing 4 winter coats seems a bit unlikely. Personally, I find 4 different winter coats to be a bit much for anyone but that's just me. Some people collect shoes and apparently for Hannah and Ryan it's coats. That's something else they have in common. I recall hearing that Jen Lilley recently had a child and it turns out it was about 6 weeks before filming the movie which explains some of the costume selections that were made - lots of coats, color blocking on some of the sweaters. Regardless of the reason, her costuming looked good and hopefully Jen was comfortable and not feeling pressure to look/dress a certain way for the role.
Obligatory moment of snark/personal rant: I am not thrilled with the guardian angels that stop time. I also don't really like that she's holding a grudge for 10 years that Ryan stole her dream job. It's odd when it comes out that he asked the interviewer about her and that he was told details of her interview. That makes no sense to me. There doesn't really seem to be much chemistry between Hannah and Ryan. I find that the fact that the mission is that Tina needs to stay in Angel Falls is problematic. Since she recently lost her husband I would think that she would benefit by being surrounded by people who care about her. Meanwhile, she knows no one in Angel Falls and Lawrence didn't seem to come back after he left. I guess that it could be good to see and experience the town he grew up in but not sure that renting a house there is logical. I assume that Ryan's house is rented fully furnished because Tina is baking right after moving in. It's also weird that Tina would insist that Ryan stay in the garage apartment while he's in town. There are other odd things built into the plot... They are making cookies on the day of the event at the bookstore, which seems like poor planning. There is also the fact that there's an office Christmas party when the "office" really just consists of Hannah and her family. I mean it makes more sense when you know that they invite most people in the community to the party but it's weird to call it an office party. I do like the twist to the ending that Ryan is the one who chucks it all to move back to the small town for a girl. I just don't really buy it all. I do admit that the wreath making event looks like fun but I think that it would be too cold outside to do it.
Hallmark Movie Connection: Jen Lilley is a frequent Hallmark star. She was previously in Winter Love Story (2019) with Kevin McGarry. Carlo Marks was previously seen in Hallmark's series, Chesapeake Shores as the love interest/boyfriend of Laci J. Mailey.
Hallmark, I'm Looking at You: So towards the end of the movie there is a passing remark about the Dread Monarch series... I'd swear that is the name of the book trilogy that Kevin McGarry's character authored in Winter Love Story... I haven't been able to confirm yet.
Curious if this movie fell short for you as well.
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