WRITE BEFORE CHRISTMAS (2019)

Jessica, owner of a music shop and something of a frustrated musician herself, buys five different Christmas cards to give on five different days to her boyfriend Wes. When he makes a dinner date with her at a restaurant known informally as the "proposal palace," she assumes that marriage is in the offing. But instead, he breaks up with her—and as it happens, she admits to her best friend Mimi that she really didn't feel all that passionately about him. So she takes the cards meant for Wes and sends them to five important people in her life: her aunt Lila who raised her, her brother Carter who is spending his first Christmas away from home in the military, her favorite boy band singer Jax whose career has sputtered out after he left his band, her friend Mimi, and Mrs. Smith, her first music teacher who inspired her as a child. Each of the cards has an impact on the recipients. For example, Jax is inspired to regroup with his band and record a new Christmas song. Carter gets the courage to pursue a relationship with Angie, a fellow soldier. Mrs. Smith, however, has passed on but her son, a handsome photographer named Luke, finds Jessica and gives her his mom's cello as a gift, which inspires her to audition for a small orchestra. But all is not Santa and mistletoe for everyone: Luke and Jessica feel an attraction but her ex-boyfriend shows up to put a kink in their relationship. Aunt Lila has a bit of a crush on a man who walks his dog down her street every day, but how will she contrive to meet him?

Well, it's a Hallmark movie so you know that everything will be Santa and mistletoe by the end. I give this Christmas romance a couple of extra points for a plot that is a bit more original than most. The five cards mean that there are three or four more plotlines than usual, though all of them are equally vanilla and predictable. I was kinda hoping that maybe Aunt Lila's dog-walking boyfriend might be a serial killer, or that Jax had a hidden fentanyl addiction, but no luck—the dog walker is just another lonely middle-aged widower and Jax is the squeakiest-cleanest pop star ever, though I have to say that his brother/manager had a slightly dissolute look about him. The two leads are a notch above the norm as well; Torrey DeVitto is wholesome without being bland as Jessica (and the actress can actually play the cello—her dad is Liberty DeVitto who was Billy Joel's regular drummer for years); Chad Michael Murray does his cocky-but-sweet bit to a tee. Grant Show (Melrose Place) is fine the dog-walker, but Lolita Davidovitch outshines them all as the aunt—she can cry on cue and not come off as phony. A cute dog, always a plus, plays an important role in the proceedings. And as usual, the sets look great, overflowing with Christmas cheer. Better than average, which in my estimation of the Hallmark canon, is a pretty strong compliment. [Hallmark]