Front Street Pictures,
Anne Heche, Dylan Neal, Farryn VanHumbeck, Sean Michael Kyer, Samantha Ferris, Michael Teigen, Darien Provost, Julia Benson
Terry (Dylan Neal) is a widower raising a teen age daughter in a new town where he’s working on developing a new hotel. Their life has been hard because he is constantly moving from one project to another, so he’s hoping to get a big promotion and move to a permanent home in California. Carol (Anne Heche) is a single Mom whose husband left her a couple years ago. She’s struggling to raise her son, but has thrown herself into the PTA and involvement in the annual Christmas Pageant at school. The two accidentally bump into each other and in a series of mishaps, things just get worse and worse. They truly are opposite on everything until they start to realize that maybe they really need each other more than they realized.
This is a touching Christmas tale featuring an overworked Dad who wants to do better, but his job keeps pulling him away, and a woman who has learned to throw herself into helping everyone else to hide her pain. Anne Heche is a talented actress, but something seemed a little bit off in this role as it wasn’t a perfect fit for her. Dylan Neal did a very good job in his role, and I think he was a better fit. The story is very well told, and though the setting is not utterly beautiful and Christmassy as many of these films are, this one is a bit more realistically dark and damp December-like. It fits the story. Other really good performances include the school Principal who tries to keep Carol and Terry from killing each other, and Carol’s best friend who gives her a lot of advice and support for what she needs. But the two kids who play Carol and Terry’s kids are really good as well. There is a lot of heartwarming lessons and morals here to learn from in the way we have to live in now, and learn to appreciate what you have and what is really important. So many times we get sidetracked on future goals and miss the important things happening around us. We also have to learn to take chances sometimes and not hide from our problems. This was a good film and Hallmark did a good job with this one.
Here is the Hallmark web page for this film.
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