A Christmas Together with You

Hallmark has upped their game this year with some very good Christmas movies. A Christmas Together With You is no exception. It has an excellent cast and a very warm and charming story. That said, someone please, for the love of God, give Megan (Laura Vandervoort) a sandwich!

With nothing to do during the Christmas holidays, a coffee shop owner who was left at the alter goes on a road trip with her widower customer in search of his long lost love from 50 years ago. Both characters eventually find their happily ever after with some bumps along the way.

I love Hallmark films. They're so positive in a world of Covid, political conflict and racism but at times I have to tolerate the mediocre acting and saccharine sweet writing. This film was a JOY not because of the plot but because of competent acting in a Hallmark film--an oxymoron! The female lead (Laura Vandervoot) and the supporting male lead (Harry Lennix) can really ACT and even everyday dialogue sounds believable coming from them. They ground the film in reality and provide touches of drama with uplifting notes. I would enjoy an entire film with just these two actors.

The rest of the cast as well as the male lead (Niall Matter) provide background. They are your typical goofy, grinning Hallmark support elves that are interchangeable between Hallmark films. They're all recognizable by their toothy grin and their slapstick style of acting.

Did I blink and they built a romance between Megan and Steve? Seems like we got very little work on their romance...Megan's pain, yes...romance? No. I felt like they did a nice job on the relationship from the past between Frank and Claire.

This is the story of a coffee shop co-owner Megan who is left be her fiancé and is melancholy with no plans over the holidays...oh! And she is also now an orphan. She sees an old photo from her loyal customer Frank and decides to help him hunt down an old flame. This takes them to a sweet Christmas-y town where Megan gets her flirt on with the inn owner Steve and Frank has some things to work out with Claire.

The acting was great. I love all four of our leads and I appreciated having an older love story. I do think that they either needed more time to tell the story or a tighter script.

Otherwise a nice story...and I appreciate the age gap between the friends Frank and Megan!

Contrary to some reviews, I enjoyed 'A Christmas Together with You'. Sure, it's not one of Hallmark's best this season. But this warm and sweet story, with its leisurely pace, is lovely to watch on screen nonetheless. Our two protagonists are Megan (played by Laura Vandervoort), a café owner whose fiancé broke off their engagement some months back, and Frank (played by Harry Lennix), Megan's favorite customer and good friend who carries around a photo of Claire (played by Liza Huget), his first love from 50 years ago. Frank, a recent widower, discovered the photo while rummaging through his garage for Christmas lights. At the café, Megan sees Frank's photo, and he tells her the story about his first love. Megan soon discovers the whereabouts of Claire online. She then convinces Frank to go on a road trip to find Claire. And so our story begins as these two go searching for love. And who knows what they might find along the way? As I alluded to above, the story has a warm and gentle vibe to it, which pulled me in. The writers also do a good job of developing the main storyline around Frank and Claire, creating a nice touch of suspense and mystery, which I enjoyed. Indeed, I might have even shed a tear or two towards the end of the film. Naturally, given that we are talking about an 84-minute movie, the storyline around Megan and Steve (played by Niall Matter) never really materialized on-screen. As a result, it felt rushed; the ending never really landed. The acting in this one was excellent. Vandervoort and Lennix's performances were brilliant. Their dialogue and scenes together, in particular, felt authentic, felt real. That is, I found it easy to connect with their performances, they pulled me in, as it were. The chemistry between the two couples was strong, though, as noted above, Vandervoort and Matter could have used some more screen time together. Finally, the Christmas vibe in this one was much more low-key than other Hallmark movies. Though the scenery, props, and sets were festive, and there was a Winter Wonderland festival (with a Christmas version of hot potato), there were very few classic Christmas filler scenes in this one (which for some, I suspect, is a plus). All in all, 'A Christmas Together with You' is a warm and heartfelt movie with some wonderful performances. Many fans of Hallmark will no doubt enjoy it.

I sat down here in 2021 to watch the Hallmark Christmas movie titled "A Christmas Together With You". Sure, I hadn't heard about the movie prior to watching it, but I guess I didn't really need to, as I figured this was possibly a run-of-the-mill Christmas movie, given the Hallmark logo.

Well, I will say that "A Christmas Together With You" was actually watchable, and it was a nice break away from the sugar-coated and super sappy romantic Christmas movies that Hallmark churn out by the dozen. Sure, "A Christmas Together With You" did have a bit of romance in it, but it wasn't that kind of movie. Thankfully and luckily. And I will say that writers Don Locke and Graham Locke actually managed to put together a storyline that was entertaining, compelling and had a great feeling to it.

So yeah, "A Christmas Together With You" is definitely a movie worth watching. But honestly speaking, then it was lacking Christmas spirit. It felt more like a drama and not a proper Christmas movie, so on that account it was somewhat of a disappointment. But, just don't sit down to watch "A Christmas Together With You" on the notion of being in for a proper Hallmark Christmas movie, and you will be adequately entertained.

I wasn't really familiar with the cast that starred in "A Christmas Together With You". I do think I've seen Laura Vandervoort (playing Megan) somewhere before, but I can't recall where or in what movie.

Regardless, if you get the chance to watch "A Christmas Together With You", do it.

My rating of director Kevin Flair's 2021 movie "A Christmas Together With You" lands on a six out of ten stars.