Up until the conflict in the story, this movie was totally derivative. It jumbles together the most common plot devices for a Christmas movie based on the premise where a reporter is sent to do an expose on a famous chef. In this case, it is a show producer, rather than a simple reporter, but the idea is totally the same. And there is no chance you can avoid predicting what will create that conflict. The boss calls seemingly every other scene to hurry up the producer and channel her efforts in a certain way. When Carly does it her own way and produces a simple hometown story, the network entirely reworks her production to make it a gossip piece, just exactly as expected.
What takes place after that goes a little way towards rescuing the movie, but can only go so far. The ending and reconciliation are stretched out as Grant stubbornly refuses to listen to the facts, but there can't be an unhappy ending so he finally relents.
Like so many Christmas movies, the leading lady has more chemistry with the daughter of her opposite lead, in this case Maya Misaljevic. It's hard to find much with Dillon Casey but there are a few good moments between them. I wasn't impressed with the acting of any of these three, but neither was it bad. The dialogue is likewise decent with some good moments but not sparkling.
I think they could have improved the appeal of this movie by reducing the amount of nagging by Carly's boss and spending a little more time with Grant loosening up. As I said, the coming conflict was obvious because it was overplayed. Also, I would have liked a little less stubbornness on Grant's part at the end.
What takes place after that goes a little way towards rescuing the movie, but can only go so far. The ending and reconciliation are stretched out as Grant stubbornly refuses to listen to the facts, but there can't be an unhappy ending so he finally relents.
Like so many Christmas movies, the leading lady has more chemistry with the daughter of her opposite lead, in this case Maya Misaljevic. It's hard to find much with Dillon Casey but there are a few good moments between them. I wasn't impressed with the acting of any of these three, but neither was it bad. The dialogue is likewise decent with some good moments but not sparkling.
I think they could have improved the appeal of this movie by reducing the amount of nagging by Carly's boss and spending a little more time with Grant loosening up. As I said, the coming conflict was obvious because it was overplayed. Also, I would have liked a little less stubbornness on Grant's part at the end.