Secretly Santa

The story of a couple disliking each other, while being secret pen pals, can only intrigue when the protagonists render it with subtle tones, balancing antagonism and growing attraction credibly. That requires an intelligent script and real chemistry between the actors. Remember the wonderful "The shop around the corner" of 1940? In this yarn, broadcast as "Secretly Santa", Miranda and Paul meet and fall for each other in a Cinderella-like scene. Disguised as Santas, they dance together, but loose track of one another. Next, they end up having to work together, perfecting a Christmas shopping app. They do not recognize and resent, though anonymously looking for and texting to, each other. Sounds cute, doesn't it? Unfortunately, Josipovic and Nelson are no Sullavan and Stewart and share but a limited dose of chemistry. What is worse, most of the show is done in overtones, with no finesse.

In the first scene, intended to describe the initial spark that generates a magical love story, Miranda and Paul act like a horny, inebriated couple out of "Sex and the City". Honestly, I barely overcame my impulse to switch channel. Happily, the show got a bit more watchable, thereafter. Yet, the producers must have sensed the simple interaction of the lead characters had no flavor. Hence, the show needed lots of distracting or disturbing actions to enhance drama. The insanity of Grant taking a momentary leave from loving his girlfriend to propose to Miranda is appalling. The mundane stupidity of the shopping app being developed reveals how base the insight into Christmas values runs at Lifetime. Let's rest here. The movie does not really deserve more attention. A possibly charming tale was turned into uneven pulp.

How can it be so flat? Feels like casting in progress and script is being read for the first time. Lots of "app", and text message checking, just like everybody these days, phone in hand. And all the fake snow and just weird over all. Watched til the end because was too lazy to get up from the couch and get the remote... I also copied this review from my another Christmas movie review, because that's what they did with the movie anyway. Set is at a pop up Christmas decorations store at a local mall. I think a perfume company came up with that movie because there were a lot of commercials from then.

This title seems a bit harsh, but is actually an accurate reflection of what I saw. I watch Christmas movies all year long, so have seen many, many of them, and this one was really a sad addition to the genre.

The two leads had no chemistry; in fact, they seemed to be bored with the entire enterprise. The editing had to string it out to the standard 90 minutes, and this left a plodding, slow narrative.

Actually, the best part of the film was the generic "best friend," played by Getenesh Berhe, whom I would like to see as a lead. Ms. Berhe was interesting in every scene in which she appeared.

Overall, if you have a choice of films, skip this one. It ain't worth the 90 minutes, folks.

Christmas films can go either way, which has been my experience watching overtime the festive output of primarily Lifetime, UPTV and Hallmark amongst those other companies. They can either be well-meaning, charming, warm-hearted and don't feel too heavy. Or they can be too over-sentimental, cheesy, contrived and bland. There have been many films of theirs that have fallen in both camps and in the camp where there is a bit of both. And 'Falling in Love at Christmas' did have the sort of premise where the execution could have gone either way.

Have seen my fair share of above average and more Christmas films recently, but 'Falling in Love at Christmas' (aka 'Secretly Santa') is not one of them. If anything it is the complete opposite, Lifetime aired some surprisingly decent Christmas films (and films in general actually) that year but there were some that were mediocre and below. And 'Falling in Love at Christmas' is one of the worst, with very little good about it. Even the sole redeeming quality has been done much better in other films of theirs that year.

That redeeming quality being the production values, which were quite nice and at least had some degree of professionalism.

Both leads however fare weakly, with Alicia Dea Josipovic trying too hard and Travis Nelson being too laid back and not trying enough. Because of those differences in acting style, there is too much of a mismatch and they don't have an awful lot of chemistry or spark. Also found the relationship too overdone on the hostility for it to pass as a romance, and Miranda is far too self-absorbed and confrontational to be easy to warm to. The supporting cast are on autopilot and none of the characters are developed enough or have any interesting or endearing traits.

Furthermore, the script goes way too far on the cheese and schmaltz (no subtlety in anything) and is constantly awkward sounding, as well as very artificial and not sounding like normal everyday conversation. The comedic elements are too much like overplayed farce and the sentimentality is hard to stomach when it is more dramatic. The story is paper thin and pedestrian in pace, at times too uneventful, and what there is of the story is very predictable, very tired and lacking in charm, heart and energy. The ending can be seen from a mile away and is too neat with a rushed build up. The app stuff was a nice idea but rather unimaginatively done and could have featured less.

Concluding, very poor. 2/10.

Another You've Got Mail premise combined with app developers. Throw in the little guy (mom and pop shop) vs the corporate giant.

The relationship development shared a lot of screen time with the app development so I'm not going to try to judge chemistry.

It would have been a nice predictable ending. The "I wanted it to be you" line was changed a bit. And it mostly was predictable, but there is one final protest against "the man".

As another reviewer said, this would have been better, maybe even fine, if there had been some subtlety. The protesting was in-your-face and Miranda had a huge chip on her shoulder.

It's not a horrible movie. (It's nice if reviewers watch the whole thing before writing a review, which is usually my policy, because a lot of these movies change attitude a lot well before the halfway point,) It's just the edges are a little sharp.