A Christmas Duet

A Christmas Duet (2019) - Hallmark

My friends, I'm typing this in early April of 2020, smack dab in the middle of the age of Corona, which has made motivation difficult.  I'm trapped in the house, probably gonna get laid off from my job in a few days, and I'd like to tell you I don't have The Rona, but then I don't know anybody who has actually gotten a test, much less myself, so I can neither confirm nor deny that statement.  I do have a ton of toilet paper, so yay!  But we must find the energy to go on!  We must watch Romantic Christmas movies in Spring and tell you what we saw to bring joy into peoples lives!  Not that this is doing that, but we are trying.  And if you are reading this at this time next year, let's hope this is all over done.  The Rona that is, not life as we know it.

Anyway, Averie, as played by the stunningly beautiful Chaley Rose, runs a little cottage inn somewhere up north which seems to have two employees.  Herself and her pregnant bestie Susie (Chiara Zanni), and all Susie really does is bake cookies.  Incessantly.  Thus Averie checks in people, cleans rooms, carries bags, does the accounting and whatever else is required to run a cottage inn.  

Jesse, as played by the stunningly handsome Rome Flynn, travels around the country with his acoustic and his manager Dan (Mike Doupod) chasing stardom.  As it so happens Averie and Jesse used to already have music stardom back in the day with their infectiously catchy Christmas song 'Wouldn't be Christmas'.  At least they tell me it's catchy.  It's actually kind of terrible.  It didn't help that Jesse sang Donnie Hathaway's 'This Christmas' earlier on, and not a lot is going to match up well with that.  Averie and Jessie were also a couple during this time, but alas something went wrong with their relationship leading to Averie running an inn, and Jessie touring solo.

As chance would have it, Jesse is in town for a show and his manager books him to stay at the inn.  Imagine these two  kids total surprise to see each other!  Then there's a snow storm which prevents Jesse from continuing his tour, forcing him to hang around the inn for a few more days.  Averie is hosting the town Christmas celebration, as well as attempting to impress this Cottage Reviewer lady so she can get the cottage inn equivalent of a Michelin star, but as I mentioned before, she's the only one working here, so Jesse volunteers to help her out with stuff.

This leads to these two pretty kids talking, reminiscing, remembering, getting interrupted after a couple of near miss kisses with them wondering why they broke up in the first place.  Until something reminds them why they broke up in the first place, until they forget why they broke up in the first place, and love re-blooms... at Christmas.  Oh, and they sing that song.  It had a video too.  They should've played the video.

Previously I had stated that whoever the stars of the Christmas movie 'The 12 Gifts of Christmas' were pound for pound the best looking fake couple of the myriad of movies I've seen, but I think these two right now own the crown.  Two really good looking kids, these two.  Does them being good looking make this a good movie?  Of course not, just two beautiful people in a run of the mill Hallmark Christmas movie.

But this one has one thing that's just a little different.  It's actually the man who once loved Christmas, but lost that love once he and his lady love split up, and as such, it is up to her to bring that Christmas love back.  Not only that, HE is the one that gives up HIS career, for the most part, to be with her.  Totally stops touring and is just gonna do studio work he says.  If this were real, he'd be the bellman because girlfriend needs employees like yesterday.

As a regular movie, 'A Christmas Duet' is okay I guess.  It's obviously terribly predictable, the performance are about what you would expect from young, albeit good looking actors kind of starting out, but as a Hallmark Holiday movie, it is completely on point.  Lot's of snow, Christmas ornaments galore, snowball fights, so much cookie baking that it looked like cookie baking scenes were on a 10 minute timer, plenty of Christmas music, classic and generic, near miss kisses, lame breakup misunderstandings, more cookie baking, Christmas tree shopping and then even more cookie baking.  They even found a way to squeeze in a cute a kid and some old.. er... people.  I'm guessing I'm actually older than the alleged old people in this movie, but then next to Averie and Jessie, pretty much anybody over 35 is gonna seem old.

While that fifth vomit is an awfully tough get, 'A Christmas Duet' makes it happen by going Maximum Hallmark, solidified by Jesse even pulling out the acoustic on more than one occasion. Any time you pull out the acoustic, you're tugging at my heart.  Maximum Hallmark this one.