If You Watch One Holiday Movie This Weekend: Hallmark’s Our Holiday Story Is Our Pick
As loyal fans of the holiday romance genre, we are prepared to start the most wonderful time of the year before spooky season ends. With Hallmark Channel’s annual Countdown to Christmas and Great American Family’s Great American Christmas now in full swing, and Lifetime and other networks loading their sleighs, we’re here once again to help you choose between the many offerings. Each Thursday, we’ll spotlight the movie that should be at the top of your weekend list and preview why other debuts will make you merry.
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THE ONE TO WATCH
Our Holiday Story
(Premieres Saturday, Nov. 2 at 8 pm on Hallmark Channel)
Warren Christie and Nikki DeLoach are a match made in Hallmark heaven in their first pairing. They star as couple Dave and Nell, who recount their complicated meet-cute to his daughter’s boyfriend, Chris (Gavin Langelo), when he arrives solo for the family’s annual holiday party. Ten years ago, Dave and Nell sat opposite each other on a train and, despite hitting it off, failed to exchange names and numbers before they were abruptly parted. After a few more random meetings and misfires around town, Dave’s then teen daughter, Joanna (Sydney Scotia), arranges for the sparks to fly at Dave’s holiday party, and they do. But then Nell, the meticulous new town comptroller, finally realizes Dave is the absented-minded guy with whom she’s been exchanging heated emails about the budget for the resurrected Christmas festival! Has fate been working overtime to bring them together, or to show them they’re not meant to be?
It takes good acting — and the weekend’s best banter — to make us believe in immense like-at-first-sight and invest in a love story to which we already know the ending. Christie brings a romantic hopefulness to amicably divorced Dave (a contrast to his Grinchy character in last year’s standout Holiday Road). DeLoach gives depth to Nell, who’s been jilted by a fiancé and longs for a place where she belongs. You’ll just have to excuse one plot point: The fact that Dave and Nell eat fruitcake year round.
Runner-Up: A Carol for Two
If you’ve been to Ellen’s Stardust Diner in New York City, our runner-up pick, A Carol for Two (premieres Friday, Nov. 1 at 8 pm on Hallmark Channel), is for you. When aspiring Broadway star Violette (Ginna Claire Mason) arrives in Manhattan from Idaho, she learns the national tour she was set to join has been cancelled. Rather than admit the setback to her supportive dad, she asks a family friend (Charlotte d’Amboise) for a job at her theater district diner Fiore’s, famous for its singing waitstaff and its Christmas Eve show, where stars are born. Violette gets assigned a closing duet with icy server Alex (Jordan Litz), who just wants to finish writing his holiday musical and get his obnoxious cousin, Brad (Gino Anania), off his couch. To that end, Alex agrees to play Cyrano when Brad begs him for help wooing Violette. Of course, the more Alex gets to know her, the more he thaws and realizes they’re a far better match. Mason and Fitz, both alums of Wicked on Broadway, sound truly wonderful together. And it’s refreshing to see a movie on Hallmark in which the Big City is where dreams are made, not where Small Town priorities are lost.
The Best of the Rest…
Holiday Mismatch (premieres Sunday, Nov. 3 at 8 pm on Hallmark Channel)
They could’ve called this Sabrina the Teenage Witch reunion Merry Meddlers. Lovably disorganized Kath (Caroline Rhea) and recently retired accountant Barbara (Beth Broderick) are Christmas Committee nemeses with nothing in common. Until they discover they’ve accidentally set up their single children, workaholic architect Lauren (Maxine Denis) and commitment-phobic improv theater owner Shane (Jon McLaren). While the kids are only fake-dating (at first), the moms make real attempts to break them up. The ladies’ comedic timing remains magic.
My Sweet Austrian Holiday (premieres Thursday, Oct. 31 at 8 pm and repeats Sunday, Nov. 3 at 6 pm on Hallmark Mystery)
When chocolatier Charlotte (Brittany Barstow) and billionaire Henry (Will Kemp) meet, neither realizes his company’s latest acquisition is the developer trying to force her to sell the shop she inherited in Vienna. The inevitable solution — seen already in two other real estate-centric movies this season — is predictable. Getting there is fun, thanks to the Love, Romance & Chocolate co-stars’ chemistry and the ever present twinkle in Kemp’s eye (like when he, also star of 2020’s Christmas Waltz, says Henry’s been working on that particular dance for years).
Tails of Christmas (premieres Saturday, Nov. 2 at 8 pm on Great American Family)
Wounded Army veteran Caleb (Eric Guilmette) is searching for purpose and finds it, and more, volunteering at the local animal shelter run by friendly, overwhelmed Amber (Ash Tsai). His leg injury has healed, but he’s still got a few issues to overcome: the crisis of faith that made him push away his parents, whatever is keeping him from adopting retriever Rex, and comparisons to Zac Efron in The Lucky One.
Christmas Time Is Here! Your Guide to 90+ Holiday Movies on Hallmark, Lifetime, Netflix and More in 2024
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