Thursday, December 15, 2016

The Spirit of Christmas (2005) TV-PG

Tasked with Selling the Hollygrove Inn before the New Year, lawyer Kate (Jen Lilley) runs into problems when she meets the Inn's dashing and reclusive ninety-five year old ghost (Thomas Beaudoin) who is confined to the Inn and cursed to be corporeal during the twelve days of Christmas.

Overall this ended up being an adorable supernatural love story with a dash of murder mystery built in.  Unfortunately, I found Lilley to be too soft and adorable to portray the tough and savvy lawyer she was supposed to be, and Beaudoin seemed stiff and stilted trying to act like a gentleman from the twenties, and not because of culture differences.  It was like he had trouble speaking formally.  And the actors portraying the other ghosts were terrible, like... high-school theater terrible.  Thankfully we do not see them often.

However, in the end it is a story worth seeing if you like romance.

As a maker's movie, it depends on what you're working on.  I got quite a bit done on the Christmas gift I've been knitting on.  It's a dialogue-rich movie, and the snowy countryside is not very distracting.  The period costumes in the flashbacks were bland.

Four out of five stars.  The acting needed work, even though the story was adorable and interesting.  Three laugh out loud moments; especially noteworthy was the break-up scene at the beginning.  One eyeroll when even I thought the romance was a little treacly.  At this price point, however, if you want to add to your holiday movies and round out your romance section, this is certainly a fine choice.  Available on Netflix, as a DVD, or on Amazon video.


 

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