Many Christmas movies are about saving the family _______ (mill). Many are about high school sweethearts with a bad parting. So, if we are going to watch a movie based on those very common threads, with a predictable ending no less, then what's the hook? It should have been rekindling the relationship between Mia and Brady. The story went there, but with way too little screen time and almost no development of that relationship. A few conversations, half about the mill and only half about the good old days, do not a hook make. Way too much screen time is spent on efforts to save the mill, all along the usual lines for a community icon. Also with a few ornamental exceptions, this movie could have been about any time of year, not just Christmas.
CMM and Chista Taylor Brown had little or no chemistry. CMM is more than a decade older than Brown and looks it here. (Yet they were the same age in high school.) Brown plays an appealing Mia. Her acting is fair and far better than one of CMM's less notable performances. He had no energy. Brown was fine with a lower energy performance but at least there was life to Mia. Other acting was poor to good. Dialogue had little spark. Background music varied with sometimes being distracting (which is a common complaint I have for this network.)
To make matters worse in terms of rooting for the relationship, I lost faith in Brady from the start. He is supposed to be experienced, so Brady could not possibly have believed a verbal promise would stand up. If he really valued Mia's family, he would have told mum to put it in the contract. At times Brady seemed shady, or lazy.
