Un Natale di cioccolato

As many people have already stated, the leading lady was...painful to watch. Not sure how this particular actress got the part but I'm convinced a piece of wood would have been more convincing. (Maybe that's why she's so pouty/mopey throughout). The leading man met typical hallmark standard, though given the ability of his love interest chemistry would have been more convincing with said piece of wood. The little girl who played his daughter - well, I'm not going to be mean but it was not great. Was she cute? Yeah. Apparently that was the only requirement.

Typical hallmark plot, entirely predictable but somehow still unpleasant.

I thought the male lead was quite good in this. Sure his part didn't make any sense at all, but I watched it all the way through because he was such a consistently believable nice guy. The little girl was cute, a decent actress for that age, and her singing was nice.

The female lead, on the other hand, was booooooring. Wow. She wasn't given much of a script to work with, but it's like she didn't even try. Also, the script had her be mean one minute and then nice the next minute, not interested and then super interested, acting like an adult then a teen. And she was passive aggressive and had no communication skills. It's just not believable that the male lead is interested in her at all once she does a few of her intense mood swings. He'd be running the other way!

I struggled a bit with this one. I found it difficult to connect with both the story and acting at times. Put simply, it did not pull me in, engage me, like some of the other Lifetime Christmas movies this 2020 season. At the center of this story is Sadie (played by Malone Thomas), who heads home for Christmas to visit her family after her boyfriend blows her off for the holidays. To her surprise, her parents have sold the family Chocolate business to Alex (our other protagonist in this story, played by Jason Burkey). Sadie agrees to teach him everything she knows about chocolate and being a chocolatier, something growing up Sadie always dreamed about becoming. While showing him the ropes, Sadie soon rediscovers her talent and passion for making chocolate while, at the same time, begins to fall in love with Alex. Unfortunately, the story falls flat. The writer could have done a better job of developing the characters in the story; they were quite dull individuals, I'm afraid. Alex, who knows nothing about making chocolate, buys a chocolate business. Really? The backstory we are given for explaining this is rather weak (not very convincing, that is). Indeed, we don't learn very much about Alex in this story, so it is hard to connect with his character, even though he has an adorable daughter. The writer too could have done a better job of developing Sadie's passions for chocolate, for taking over the business. We don't really see this 'rediscovery' develop on screen. Granted, this is partly due to the acting, but also due to a lack of character development in the script. The obsession with the gingerbread houses for the party, which consumed much of the second half of the film, seemed strange and did not help in this regard. That said, I did enjoy the lesson on chocolate truffles, a pity there was not more of this in the movie. The acting, overall, could have been better. Malone Thomas's performance was mixed. There were several scenes where she fell flat; i.e., she wasn't very expressive at times. And I never really felt her passion for chocolate on screen, as I alluded to above. She did have some very good scenes with Francie and Alex. Jason Burkey's performance was decent. For the first 30 minutes or so, I found it difficult to connect with his character. For example, he seemed uninterested in learning about chocolate from Sadie in these earlier scenes, which seemed odd given he was buying the business. I did enjoy the scenes and dialogue with his daughter; his face lit right up in these scenes. I thought the chemistry between the two was mixed; they had some good and not so good moments/scenes/dialogue together. The supporting cast was solid. I thought Patty Lambert (playing Carol, Sadie's mother) had a strong, convincing performance. And Remi Hilson (playing Francie, the daughter) was adorable; she did great, I thought. Finally, the scenery, props, and sets were quite charming and festive. I thought the music was bold at times but good. All in all, the movie is all right. It is not one of Lifetime's best this year nor is it one of their worse. If you are a fan of Lifetime Christmas movies, then it might be worth a watch.

It's a Christmas movie that's suppose to be a casual one time watch anyway. The thing that disappointed me was the Main Actress who is the protagonist is a pretty stoic face. That's all she is. I mean the acting was so bad. She's pretty and all but that's not enough for a good movie. The best friend of the main actress was more appealing to me. Anyhow it's worse than a throwaway movie. The 'conflict' was meh and the whole movie ended up being meh thereafter.

The story is totally based on the formula where mom and dad are selling the business Sadie grew up to love. But it's like the formula got lost in translation from another language. The elements are obvious, but so many things don't flow right. They don't make sense.

It starts out fine. I liked that Sadie not only didn't get fired, but she wasn't under any pressure from her boss. All the pressure was her own disappointment. Immediately her jerk of a boyfriend calls her and tells her he is too busy to join her for Christmas. At that point, Sadie is done with him. Then mom and dad drop the bombshell. And Sadie accidentally runs into Alex, the new owner, without knowing it's him. Then she has to train him. They grow closer together. Sadie meets Francie the daughter and of course they hit it off. And Sadie has to plan a big party on short notice and a snowstorm throws a wrench in her plans. All good. It's totally by the numbers, but it's going as the viewer would expect..

Then things get strange. There's the usual misunderstanding, but that's treated like a tiny blip. The ex-boyfriend comes into play, but why? The way it's done is totally pointless and the screen time would have been better used smoothing out the climax. The climax is a total cluster. The outcome is predictable, but it makes no sense how it gets there. As another reviewer points out, the character development explaining certain things is totally lacking. All of a sudden, the characters are just there. The epilogue is another thing that seems pointless - the way it's done, it's almost pointless. But then maybe it's artsy.

The acting is mostly good. Malone Thomas and Jason Burkey have mixed chemistry, but mostly it's good.