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Reasonable viewers quickly learn to keep modest expectations of a Hallmark/Lifetime holiday romance movie. Most are utterly predictable and long on stock characters and tropes (some of them grating). They're vanilla as hell, any romance is chaste, and 'merry' doings often have the feel of a forced march through a glossy Small Town America that never existed.
The trick, within those parameters, is whether the production can arrive at 90ish minutes of moderately charming viewing to bake cookies with.
The stars don't matter that much, imo, unless they're terrific or terrible. So far as 'Too Close for Christmas Goes' I DVRed hesitantly, given previous overacting from one of the stars. (Whose acting was better here.)
What sank the movie was the sheer weight of the tropes and stereotypes.
-The controlling Mom who's OCD about all things Christmas.
-Gauntlet of family Christmas events, complete with mondo calendar.
-The under-appreciated workaholic protagonist gal who can't keep a guy.
-Blunt as a brick wandering romantic interest who just can't settle down.
-Prickly twosome trapped under 1 roof by ridiculously contrived circumstances.
-Heroine miraculously saves event with zero time and elementary knowledge.
It still wasn't too bad-as these films go-till the romance's manufactured stress point. Which was such a junior high eye roller (no spoilers), it became the trope-too-far that broke the camel's back. There's stale, and then there's stooopid!
You can do much better than this one.
score 3/10
chiltonsjillfreeport 5 December 2020
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw6338717/ |
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28-2-2021 11:21:05