Once Upon a Christmas Miracle
Once Upon a Christmas Miracle (2018) - Hallmark
Heather (Aimee Teegarden) is an angel. Not a literal one with wings and stuff, but this hard working nursing student is pretty much perfect. Her parents are perfect, her sister is perfect, her town looks perfect, even though it's Chicago and we know it's the opposite of that, but it sure looks perfect from here. Heather has been feeling run down lately, and in movie land if you're not feeling perfect you are probably deathly ill. At least she didn't cough. If you cough in movie land you are going to die.
Heather, sadly enough, needs a liver. Generally somebody needs to die for one of these to become available, but there's this newfangled thing called a 'living donor' where somebody who is a match can donate half their liver to you, without the other person having the misfortune of actually dying. This introduces us to Chris (Agent Grant Ward), the recently retired marine, working at a buddy's plant nursery, who is also spiritually, emotionally and physically perfect. If God hadn't mis-stepped with Adam and Eve and used Heather and Chris instead, we'd all be walking around naked right now because Heather would NOT have listened to that pesky serpent and Chris would've stroked his head and it would soon be his best friend. I guess there'd be no Jesus either because there wouldn't be any original sin that He'd need to give His life for. Oh well.
Anyway, before Chris runs off to some overseas selfless volunteer act, he decides to get tested to see if he's a match for the girl he's only seen on the flyers around town, and gosh darn... he's a perfect match! Now it's time for these two kids to get to know each other a bit sine Chris is about to give her half his liver and stuff, and wouldn't you know it... these two perfect people are obviously perfect for each other, they just don't know it yet. Everybody else does, but they haven't figured it out. Even after the transplant, which goes perfectly by the way, Chris just can't stop doing great things for Heather. Heather even asks her mom what can she possibly do for Chris considering all he's done for her? I have some ideas about that Heather! Heather's mom says 'love'... which was exactly what I was thinking too! More or less. And that's what she gives him. A perfect ending for perfect people.
Now this Hallmark Christmas movie here, while the same, is a little different. Yeah, our heroine still has to get a man at the end, but her path doesn't involve hating Christmas, being a tireless career person while dismissing Christmas, or being heartbroken around Christmas. Just trying not to die around Christmas. Also a little different is that neither of these characters has any discernible flaws, which means a few things will be missing, such as the absence of initial animosity, madcap misunderstandings and poor decision making which normally tends to drive the boy and the girl apart before they can get back together. The only thing here that would've possibly stood in the way of love was Chris's perfect desire to help build homes for homeless refugees overseas or something.
All of this is just to say that this one kind of bucks convention. Slightly. All of the other things that make for a vomit worthy Hallmark movie are here in spades. Christmas Tree shopping? Uh... opening scene baby. Plus my man works in a Christmas tree lot so people were constantly shopping for Christmas trees. Cookie baking? Every single character in this movie with a speaking role, including the men, baked at least one pan of cookies. Hot chocolate sipping? They were downing it like a wino attacking a bottle of Boone's Farm. Snowy backgrounds? Christmas music? Gift giving? Of course. The only thing really missing was a near miss kiss, but then these two were so chaste that nothing like that could possibly happen. I mean these two young beautiful fit people spent a night together at a remote wooded cabin and didn't get within six feet of each other. Just making wreaths. And there were no orphan kids. Love me some orphan kids.
But as far as these Hallmark Christmas movies go this one was better than average. Brett Dalton sold us pretty good on being the walking embodiment of male purity, as opposed to being the duplicitous scoundrel he played in multiple seasons of Agents of SHIELD, and Lolita Davidovich was in this movie. Playing Brett Dalton's mom. When I was a younger guy, Ms. Davidovich made her living playing dangerous sexy fatal females, now she's trapped playing mothers of grown ass men on the Hallmark Channel. Girls gotta eat I guess. Nonetheless, a very vomit worthy experience, this 'Once Upon a Christmas Miracle'.
Heather, sadly enough, needs a liver. Generally somebody needs to die for one of these to become available, but there's this newfangled thing called a 'living donor' where somebody who is a match can donate half their liver to you, without the other person having the misfortune of actually dying. This introduces us to Chris (Agent Grant Ward), the recently retired marine, working at a buddy's plant nursery, who is also spiritually, emotionally and physically perfect. If God hadn't mis-stepped with Adam and Eve and used Heather and Chris instead, we'd all be walking around naked right now because Heather would NOT have listened to that pesky serpent and Chris would've stroked his head and it would soon be his best friend. I guess there'd be no Jesus either because there wouldn't be any original sin that He'd need to give His life for. Oh well.
Anyway, before Chris runs off to some overseas selfless volunteer act, he decides to get tested to see if he's a match for the girl he's only seen on the flyers around town, and gosh darn... he's a perfect match! Now it's time for these two kids to get to know each other a bit sine Chris is about to give her half his liver and stuff, and wouldn't you know it... these two perfect people are obviously perfect for each other, they just don't know it yet. Everybody else does, but they haven't figured it out. Even after the transplant, which goes perfectly by the way, Chris just can't stop doing great things for Heather. Heather even asks her mom what can she possibly do for Chris considering all he's done for her? I have some ideas about that Heather! Heather's mom says 'love'... which was exactly what I was thinking too! More or less. And that's what she gives him. A perfect ending for perfect people.
Now this Hallmark Christmas movie here, while the same, is a little different. Yeah, our heroine still has to get a man at the end, but her path doesn't involve hating Christmas, being a tireless career person while dismissing Christmas, or being heartbroken around Christmas. Just trying not to die around Christmas. Also a little different is that neither of these characters has any discernible flaws, which means a few things will be missing, such as the absence of initial animosity, madcap misunderstandings and poor decision making which normally tends to drive the boy and the girl apart before they can get back together. The only thing here that would've possibly stood in the way of love was Chris's perfect desire to help build homes for homeless refugees overseas or something.
All of this is just to say that this one kind of bucks convention. Slightly. All of the other things that make for a vomit worthy Hallmark movie are here in spades. Christmas Tree shopping? Uh... opening scene baby. Plus my man works in a Christmas tree lot so people were constantly shopping for Christmas trees. Cookie baking? Every single character in this movie with a speaking role, including the men, baked at least one pan of cookies. Hot chocolate sipping? They were downing it like a wino attacking a bottle of Boone's Farm. Snowy backgrounds? Christmas music? Gift giving? Of course. The only thing really missing was a near miss kiss, but then these two were so chaste that nothing like that could possibly happen. I mean these two young beautiful fit people spent a night together at a remote wooded cabin and didn't get within six feet of each other. Just making wreaths. And there were no orphan kids. Love me some orphan kids.
But as far as these Hallmark Christmas movies go this one was better than average. Brett Dalton sold us pretty good on being the walking embodiment of male purity, as opposed to being the duplicitous scoundrel he played in multiple seasons of Agents of SHIELD, and Lolita Davidovich was in this movie. Playing Brett Dalton's mom. When I was a younger guy, Ms. Davidovich made her living playing dangerous sexy fatal females, now she's trapped playing mothers of grown ass men on the Hallmark Channel. Girls gotta eat I guess. Nonetheless, a very vomit worthy experience, this 'Once Upon a Christmas Miracle'.
Loved the film. Who cares if it's not entirely real. Its nice to see a feel good film, rather than people being nasty or killing each other.
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