My name is CammieTime and I've reviewed over 20 Hallmark Christmas movies on IMDb since 2016!
Hope at Christmas is your above average Hallmark Christmas movie despite 37 year old Scottie Thompson (Sydney) looking at least 42 and Ryan Paevey (Mac) looking much younger. Thus, this was a nice Christmas movie with a bit of single cougar on the prowl elements.
Hopewell is "special." It is your standard over-zealous for Christmas town with ridiculous holiday traditions such as organized caroling, ginger bread house making contests, and a commercial main street competition. Also, the town is apparently a short car drive from New York City AND it's shown to be in North Carolina...Hopewell is VERY special indeed. And the town having a local fancy french restaurant...yeah right.
Sydney works as your cliche ad agency director (yawn - under qualified), while Mac is a 4th grade teacher (yawn - over qualified). Somehow the sophisticated classy ad director from NYC hits it off with a small town 4th grade teacher who moonlights at the Christmas tree farm. The magic of this movie is that this all comes across as quite believable despite the odds of these two actually hitting it off in real life.
There is some manufactured Santa drama toward the end that is neither fully explored nor taken advantage of and we also get to see yet another holiday ginger bread house making contest.
The whole Book Bea concept was clever and was the movie's foundation and strong point. The empty Grandma's house we start with is quickly forgotten and discarded as a plot point in favor of the bookstore, for better or for worse.
Everyone gives up something to stay in the small town. Ray the daughter gives up a trip to Hawaii with her dad, but it's never explained how the custody requirements from the divorce allow for that. Bea gives up the bookstore, and Sydney gives up a dream opportunity at a top New York ad agency to - you guessed it - stay in hopewell and run the bookstore and spend more time with Mr. Mac. Boring on paper but acted well enough to make it all work for the most part.
Doesn't get 10 stars because: Plot is not fully aligned beginning to end and the Santa subplot felt forced, misused, and underutilized (if you're gonna do that, then do it right!). Also, can't ignore the glaring errors in Geography. I'll give them a pass on the French restaurant :)
Hope at Christmas is your above average Hallmark Christmas movie despite 37 year old Scottie Thompson (Sydney) looking at least 42 and Ryan Paevey (Mac) looking much younger. Thus, this was a nice Christmas movie with a bit of single cougar on the prowl elements.
Hopewell is "special." It is your standard over-zealous for Christmas town with ridiculous holiday traditions such as organized caroling, ginger bread house making contests, and a commercial main street competition. Also, the town is apparently a short car drive from New York City AND it's shown to be in North Carolina...Hopewell is VERY special indeed. And the town having a local fancy french restaurant...yeah right.
Sydney works as your cliche ad agency director (yawn - under qualified), while Mac is a 4th grade teacher (yawn - over qualified). Somehow the sophisticated classy ad director from NYC hits it off with a small town 4th grade teacher who moonlights at the Christmas tree farm. The magic of this movie is that this all comes across as quite believable despite the odds of these two actually hitting it off in real life.
There is some manufactured Santa drama toward the end that is neither fully explored nor taken advantage of and we also get to see yet another holiday ginger bread house making contest.
The whole Book Bea concept was clever and was the movie's foundation and strong point. The empty Grandma's house we start with is quickly forgotten and discarded as a plot point in favor of the bookstore, for better or for worse.
Everyone gives up something to stay in the small town. Ray the daughter gives up a trip to Hawaii with her dad, but it's never explained how the custody requirements from the divorce allow for that. Bea gives up the bookstore, and Sydney gives up a dream opportunity at a top New York ad agency to - you guessed it - stay in hopewell and run the bookstore and spend more time with Mr. Mac. Boring on paper but acted well enough to make it all work for the most part.
Doesn't get 10 stars because: Plot is not fully aligned beginning to end and the Santa subplot felt forced, misused, and underutilized (if you're gonna do that, then do it right!). Also, can't ignore the glaring errors in Geography. I'll give them a pass on the French restaurant :)