HOPE AT CHRISTMAS (2018)

After a month of writing reviews of Hallmark and Lifetime Christmas movies, it has finally dawned on me that I keep saying the same thing about them all being the same movie, from the same template with the same conventions and often the same actors. Of course, this is more or less true of many genres--cozy mysteries, thrillers, romances, superhero movies, etc. and why genre lovers keep coming back for more. But those genres contain many variations whereas the Christmas TV-movie does not. It used to, back in the 90s and early 2000s, when you could find stories inspired by A Christmas Carol or It’s a Wonderful Life, or stories with actual magic or ghosts or Santa. But now they all seem to center around the big-city career woman grounding herself by finding the right small-town man. Or sometimes it’s a businessman and a small-town gal. Or two business people in competition for a job. There are movies with veterans and royalty, but those aren't my cup of tea. 

This one is no better or worse than any other I've seen this year. Scottie Thompson is a big-city single mom who is about to accept a job at a high-powered ad company. At Christmas she and her daughter go to the small town of Hopewell to sell her grandmother's house. The meet-cute moment: at the local bookstore, she sees handsome Ryan Paevey shoplifting some books, but when she reports him to the owner (Colleen Winton), she is told he is a schoolteacher who looks for books and settles up at the end of each month. The moment when you know Scottie will get stuck in the small town: she agrees to help Colleen, an older woman thinking of retiring, run the store over the holidays. The hero's hidden depths: in addition to being a much-loved elementary school teacher, he works at a Christmas tree farm, takes over as the town Santa, is a widower, and a published author (under a different name). Romantic sparks fly, fanned by the daughter, but also complications arise (a minor misunderstanding causes Scottie to become peevish and stubborn in the last 20 minutes of the movie). But it's hardly a spoiler to note that in the last five minutes, Scottie decides to turn down the big city job, stay to take over the bookstore, and settle in with Ryan.

As usual, it all comes down to the look (very Christmassy) and the actors. Paevey, pictured, who was a soap opera actor before Hallmark discovered him, is ridiculously handsome (in a soapy way) and has no bad angles from which to be shot. He is masculine (deep voiced) in an nonthreatening way. (This movie has no romantic rivals to threaten either of the leads.) Thompson is mature, attractive and likable (even when she's being unreasonably angry at Ryan). Winton is older, spunky and wise, and serves as co-matchmaker with the daughter (Erica Tremblay, who is fine). Race watch: Scottie's potential boss is Black, and Ryan's best buddy is Asian (Nelson Wong, who has make a career out of these sidekick roles). This is absolutely average in every way. It's pleasant viewing but you'll remember little about it the next day, which is why I wrote this review in a hurry. But coming up this week, I'll cover two movies which finally break the mold in a more important way: same-sex couples are featured prominently. Will this be a good thing? Stay tuned. [Hallmark]