Inn Love by Christmas

Mandy Leeds (Jonna Walsh) is a regional manager at a hotel conglomerate in Miami. She's visiting her grandmother (Jayne Eastwood) for Christmas. She runs into old rival Lucas Menzino (Jesse Hutch) who stole her rental car. The rivalry continues when both end up chasing after the same local hotel.

Their rivalry needs better banter. They are too nice and too bland. There is no heat in the rivalry and the inevitable relationship. Instead, they seem to be low-simmering and stalling the inevitable conflict. Then there is the hotel. They need an interesting looking hotel. If they're fighting over it, it needs to be the central piece. This is Lifetime trying to fight back against Hallmark. They are certainly not doing anything more than that with this one.

Yes, the story line is the same as all the boy meets girl Christmas movies but I thoroughly enjoyed this one. Jesse Hutch is one of my favourites. I didn't know Jonna Walsh before this but I will watch for her now. Old favourites Jayne Eastwood and Art Hinkle are an added bonus. Filmed in Hamilton, ON is pretty cool too. Close to home.

Have said many times about my love of Christmas and getting a lot of pleasure out of in particular watching films, cartoons and specials during this period, something that most years has been much needed. Wanted to see some more festive films that were more recent, lower in budget and were not childhood favourites, so in a way to broaden my horizons and have been doing so since November 2019. The idea of the film did sound predictable and similar to other hotel etc-set Lifetime/Hallmark films.

Despite being a very uneven film, with a great first two thirds but a very disjointed and odd final one, 'Inn Love by Christmas' is one of the better 2020 Lifetime Christmas films. Have said in my reviews for other films from the batch reviewed already (some way to go before completing) about 2020 being a very mixed but far from terrible year for Lifetime Christmas films, and 'Inn Love by Christmas' compares favourably compared to some of the others from the batch.

'Inn Love by Christmas' is not perfect by all means. It is let down by the underwhelming final third, which is muddled and over the top odd as well as taking un-realism to extremes. With it being so inferior to the rest of the film, it makes the film feel disjointed. There is a twist that is very jarring and predictable, as well as adding absolutely nothing and introduced far too suddenly.

Also adding nothing is the villain, who is too much of a cartoon and felt shoe-horned in and out of place. The ending is too convenient, forced and too pat.

Much is great though. It looks lovely, with scenery that captures the festive spirit very well pleasingly shot. The soundtrack also adds to the atmosphere and is easy to remember, the music does vary in Lifetime films and can be intrusive but it wasn't here for me. The script mixes amusing comedy, sweet romance and not too sentimental drama with ease and good balance, having personality too. The direction is more than competent and seems at ease with the genre.

Furthermore, despite having an underwhelming final third, the rest of the film is very well done. Charming, heart-warming, light-hearted, with momentum never being a problem. Jonna Walsh and Jesse Hutch are very engaging leads in roles that are not too perfect or over-negative, while Jayne Eastwood is great fun. The chemistry between the leads is warm and genuine.

Overall, really liked most of the film but the final third lets things down significantly sadly. 7/10.

I use, very often, the term nice for define Hallmark movies. In this case , correct sounds some better.

First for supporting actors beautiful job.

Second for main actors, beautiful and good workers for the nice sparkles of characters.

For fine define of values , from friendship and love - in various forms- to the fair decision and the feminine version of Peter Pan syndrome.

But the story ? You know it so well than it becomes a sort of pretext. Nothing serious, same recipe and same ways for craft it but the nice portraits proposed by. Art Hindle, Jayne Eastwood,Tammy Isbel and especialy Kelly Van der Burg are just beautiful and. Jonna Welsh and. Jesse Hutch are pretty in many senses, reminding , in fair way, old classic fairy tales.

The Christmas Listing - but that movie was far worse and slightly different in that the leads didn't know each other from high school and they had to live at the inn they wanted to buy. There's also a resemblance to Once Upon a Main Street. After you get past why the two leads are thrown together, it's the same old stuff. The two keep working together on things and guess what - surprise - they rekindle their relationship. Don't have to wonder how this is going to end. The conflict was a slight twist as to how it was engineered and the lead's response to it was not quite the usual either. So it wasn't totally the usual. The last part was a little over the top unreal, but only slightly more than average in these movies.

Some things were confusing. Why did Lucas basically help Mandy and sabotage himself? That starts pretty early. Also I didn't think it was clear that Mandy not staying in town to run the place was a secret. Lucas knew it.

There was some chemistry between Jonna Walsh and Jesse Hatch. They could have had a little more screen time together. They avoided the usual animosity at the start and started almost immediately with upbeat banter and teasing.

While there were no great big highs or lows, I think there was the one slight surprise.

I wondered about Mariah Campos as Ginny Zee. There was a nice song performance. She sings a song I never heard and assume it was original although IMDb gives no specific credit as of this writing.