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Reviews
Under the Christmas Tree (2021)
Lifetime's very best lesbian Christmas movie ever
Also its first.
An almost all-Canadian cast, and Ottawa locations, portray small-town Maine adequately. The sweetness gets almost cringeworthy - until the script finally cooks up some convincing Christmasy conflict in the last half-hour.
The only real disappointment was the big crane pullback shot at the end, after the leads' reconciliation and second kiss. You'd think they could have at least casually parked a U-Haul on the street?
Christmas by Chance (2020)
The sideshows are the real show
This Toronto-area production follows a predictably Jane Austen-ish Christmas-movie plot. But it has an unusually strong Canadian cast, with Jacob Blair bringing the perfect look and demeanor as a patrician, slightly-clueless rich white dude.
Two things save this. First, there's an unusually funny set piece in which small-town female lead Chance (Winny Clarke) pretends to be a British noble. Second, there's the rest of the movie, in which blonde gal Clarke is completely upstaged by radiant Celine Tsai, exploding the typecast role of Single Asian Best Friend.
By 2021, we've finally got some fun comedy parodies of the Xmas-movie genre. But this one plays with the conventions subtly and almost unintentionally, and it's worth watching for those reasons alone.
My Christmas Family Tree (2021)
Secretly Canadian
The "New York City" and "Barrington, Connecticut" locations are all Vancouver, Canada. The director is Canadian, as are the two hunky (in a rather stiff/lumberjacky way) male leads.
So the scene in which Aimee Teegarden teaches Montréal-born Andrew Walker to skate is an inside joke.
Aimee Teegarden (who I'd never heard of before) is sparkling. Some of the dialogue is snappy and funny.
Otherwise, it's a heartwarming Hallmark Christmas movie, full of improbably well-behaved white people. With more interiors and family cheer than usual, less Main Street exteriors and explicit romantic frisson, and even less than the usual quotient of Nonwhite Friends with No Back Story.
So be grateful for the Canadian film industry that cranks out these Xmas TV movies. And for Canada - Santa couldn't make it to the U. S. without it.