Designing Christmas

Designing Christmas (2022) -

I liked the different take on the standard formula, although I would usually avoid the type of programme that they were replicating. Also, because of the nature of the story, it wasn't exactly Christmassy, more just set at Christmas, as if making it a seasonal film was an afterthought.

I didn't see the friendship between Pablo, played by Marco Grazzini and Stella (Jessica Szohr) moving on to anything romantic. Their relationship didn't lend itself to that and it seemed like they felt pressured in to it for the sake of those around them.

It might almost have been more believable if he had consoled and fallen for Jack, her actual boyfriend in the film, to whom Stella was actually a bit of a b!tch and not really that fair.

I wasn't keen on Stella at all to be honest, she had a very harsh look that didn't help endear her to me or make me feel that I wanted her to find love. Perhaps it was just resting b!tch face and she was actually really nice though?

The first kiss that the two leads had was very out of the blue and confused me, because there had been so little suggestion that it was going to happen at all. I was like "What? Where did that come from?", because they'd only really been bickering up until that point.

So on the whole I wasn't that enamoured by this one, despite the fact that Pablo was very cute. The film did lose points for not showing him at least topless and it lost more points for the terrible Christmas Tree. Where did they find it????? At the dump from the previous December? It was so dead!

Not one that I will probably watch again.

4.50/10.