Ivy Donaldson struggles with her mom's shadow, Muriel, the Christmas darling of Icicle Falls. She is now separated from her husband Rob and tries her best with her daughter, but after a seri... Read allIvy Donaldson struggles with her mom's shadow, Muriel, the Christmas darling of Icicle Falls. She is now separated from her husband Rob and tries her best with her daughter, but after a series of strange but comical events everybody gets together in unexpected but festive ways.Ivy Donaldson struggles with her mom's shadow, Muriel, the Christmas darling of Icicle Falls. She is now separated from her husband Rob and tries her best with her daughter, but after a series of strange but comical events everybody gets together in unexpected but festive ways.
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Overall, it's a decent movie as long as your expectations aren't too high. Just could have been so much better. I'd say the director needs more experience or skill since that's where the cohesion should have come from. Choppy and labored and stilted.
This plot is perfectly thin, you can guess how things turn out right from the start, but that's what Christmas movies are about. Like a blanket and a warm cup of hot chocolate they are meant to be warm and comfortable with just a hint of merriment.
The cast is all fun, and they look like they are having fun. Even the obligatory teenage girl is not obnoxious.
All in all, a nice way to spend an evening.
When you have a film where you're relieved when one character isn't in a scene, that's a bad sign. And not because you have a bad guy you don't like but just because the character is constantly annoying.
The whole subplot about "vandalizing candy canes" by moving them around was a non-starter for me. It wasn't serious enough to raise concern, nor funny enough to be amusing.
On the sentimental side, we have divorced parents coming to terms over their daughter and possibly becoming close again and an accused prankster who clearly isn't going to be the culprit.
More than halfway in, I looked over at my wife and said, "At an hour and sixteen minutes into the movie, I'm thinking it should have established SOMETHING I care about." Oops, and just after that Miss Annoying Neighbor walked into another scene to ruin it. We didn't turn it off but probably should have.
The movie tries to be heart-warming but just doesn't get there. At times it goes for silly, and doesn't quite make that work either.
Dan and Andrea have zero chemistry as a divorced couple trying to keep things good for their teen daughter as the holidays approach.
Throw in an obnoxious neighbor, a prankster, a female cop dealing with the tragic death of her fiancé, and a veteran trying to woo her, and you end up up with 90 minutes of meh.
One of the worst I've seen from GAF.
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- ConnectionsReferenced in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit: And a Trauma in a Pear Tree (2022)
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