Hallmark For All Seasons

It’s the first official weekend of Hallmark’s winter movies, and I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I am about that.  The most wonderful time of year has finally begun (television-wise, at least).  First up was “A Merry Christmas Match” on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries channel.  It aired on October 25, 2019 and co-starred Ashley Newbrough and Kyle Dean Massey.  It was filmed entirely in California – no Canada needed!

In a nutshell

You guys, I hate to say this straight out of the gate for the first movie of the season, but I did not like this as much as I hoped.  I had some major questions surrounding the story, the characters lacked chemistry, and despite really appreciating Ashley Newbrough in this movie, it did not live up to my expectations.

Plot

Corey (Ashley Newbrough) lives in a ski village where she works at her mother’s local antique shop and is the director of a local Christmas pageant in honor of her father. When eligible bachelor Ryder (Kyle Dean Massey) visits her store, sparks fly and she wonders if she should have left town to follow her dream of becoming a theater director.

Actors

Last year I gave Ashley Newbrough some grief for “Small Town Christmas” but upon further viewings, I ended up liking her.  In THIS movie, about halfway through I wrote down, “I like Ashley much much more in this movie.” Despite the problematic storytelling, she made her character extremely likable.

Kyle Dean Massey is new to Hallmark, and I hate to say this, but I didn’t care for his character in this movie.  I feel so bad saying that, because I think in the right movie, with the right co-star, he’d be great.  But in this movie, with this story, with Ashley Newbrough as his co-star, it didn’t work for me.  I’ll tell you why in the next section.

As for the six degrees of Kris Polaha, obviously he and Newbrough are a separation of ONE since they did a movie together last year.  And he and Massey are a separation of two as a result.

Chemistry

The reason this movie didn’t work for me was that these two characters had no chemistry whatsoever.  And that’s all down to the timeline of this movie.  It felt like some scenes were missing that showed them getting to know each other more, and as a result, he came off as being incredibly needy, stalker-ish and weird.

Feelgoods

Because of the poor storytelling, and the lack of chemistry, I did not have a single feelgood moment from this movie OTHER than learning a lot of reindeer that I did not know before.

Tropes

I love Christmas movies because they are chock full of tropes.  This one centers around a children’s Christmas pageant, so that’s a win.  Characters drank hot cocoa not once, but twice and it earned bonus points when one character held the cup and drank with two hands.  The family-owned business (the antique shop) was in financial trouble. There was a very brief snowball fight.  And yes, my ubiquitous empty coffee cups made at least one appearance very early in the movie.   They never showed an overview shot of her home, but it looked like it had a small front porch to me, albeit not in a traditional sense (Craftsman-style home).

One of the newer tropes that I was introduced to also showed up.  A reader told me a few months back that a lot of times the characters will say some form of “Seriously?” and this one was no different, except the variation was that Corey said, “What what?” where a “Seriously?” would have sufficed.  So I counted it.

But truthfully, I don’t count this is as a true Christmas movie – it wasn’t really centered around Christmas much at all, was it?  This could have easily just been a Winterfest movie.

Bingo Card Score

It scored 7 out of 25.

Did I Hear/See That Right?

And here’s where the movie lost me.

There were two egregious things that I could not overlook, and it resulted in my feeling that Ryan was a stalker.

First off, they met in the store and did not hit it off.  She gave him NO inclination whatsoever that she did not like him.  The next day (the movie implies it’s the next day), he apparently is smitten with her and goes back to her store, thinking that he may have a shot with her (despite her so clearly NOT being into him the night before).  After that second conversation, they go for a walk and he is so aggressively interested in her, even though she BARELY KNOWS HIM.  It was weird and that’s why I felt some scenes were missing because there is NO WAY that after three short interactions (two in the store and the walk home) that she would be interested in this weird heavy-handed guy.

And that leads me to my second issue.  She barely knows the guy, her MOTHER barely knows the guy, and yet the perfect Christmas gift for Corey to give Ryan is HER DEAD FATHER’S WATCH?  I don’t think so.  If you’ve known a guy for 2-3 days, you don’t suddenly start handing over the family heirlooms, I don’t care how long they’ve been getting dusty sitting on the bookshelves.

Third – he supposedly liked Corey a lot, but despite this Ryan makes plans to go away to wine country with Victoria, a chick he knows is 100% into him?  WHAT?  No way.  Absolutely no way.  If I was Corey and found out – even if the guy canceled the trip – I’d not EVER trust him again!  So I had a major problem with Corey eventually being okay with him being a stalker with me and planning weekend getaways with another woman.  Nope.  BIG problem with that.

Re-watchability

Despite Ashley Newbrough’s great performance, I definitely won’t watch this one again.

The Ranking

I’m not surprised by how low this one ranked, given my issues with the plot. It’s not often that a movie sits in the perfect place in the rankings, but this one most definitely belongs ABOVE the movies it’s higher than, and below the movies ranked higher.  And that makes sense given there is a ~5-point separation between this movie and “A Winter Castle” sitting in one spot higher.

1. Love to the Rescue RE-RANKED (air date: March 23) – 708 pts – weighted score: 120.6 (84.6%)
2. Winter Love Story (air date: January 19) – 685 pts – weighted score: 115.8 (81.2%)
3. Mystery 101 (air date: January 27 (HMM)) – 454 pts – weighted score: 94.2 (80.5%)
4. Love on the Menu (air date: February 23) – 642 pts – weighted score: 113.8 (79.9%)
5. Bottled With Love (air date: April 13) – 649 pts – weighted score: 112.2 (78.7%)
6. Love Takes Flight (air date: April 27) – 670 pts – weighted score: 111.0 (77.9%)
7. Love, Romance & Chocolate (air date: February 16) – 627 pts – weighted score: 110.2 (77.3%)
8. The Last Bridesmaid (air date: June 22) – 643 pts – weighted score: 109.2 (76.6%)
9. Love, Fall and Order (air date: Oct 12) – 636 pts – weighted score: 109.0 (76.5%)
10. Paris, Wine & Romance (air date: May 4) – 638 pts – weighted score: 108.3 (76.0%)
11. My Boyfriend’s Back: Wedding March 5 (air date: June 8) – 635 pts – weighted score: 108.0 (75.8%)
12. Over the Moon in Love (air date: Oct 5) – 613 pts – weighted score: 106.3 (74.6%)
13. Flip That Romance (air date: March 16) – 597 pts – weighted score: 105.8 (74.2%)
14. My One and Only (air date: Aug 31) – 597 pts – weighted score: 105.6 (74.1%)
15. Mystery 101: Playing Dead (air date: June 23 (HMM)) – 425 pts – weighted score: 86.5 (73.9%)
16. A Summer Romance (air date: Aug 17) – 577 pts – weighted score: 103.7 (72.7%)
17. True Love Blooms (air date: April 6) – 598 pts – weighted score: 103.1 (72.3%)
18. Forever in My Heart (air date: Sept 14) – 560 pts – weighted score: 102.4 (71.8%)
19. The Story of Us (air date: February 9) – 605 pts – weighted score: 101.3 (71.1%)
20. A Brush with Love (air date: March 30) – 563 pts – weighted score: 97.7 (68.6%)
21. Ruby Herring: Silent Witness (air date: January 20 (HMM)) – 357 pts – weighted score: 79.5 (67.9%)
22. Love, Unleashed (air date: July 6, 2019) – 559 pts – weighted score: 96.2 (67.5%)
23. Love Under the Rainbow (air date: March 9) – 581 pts – weighted score: 96.0 (67.4%)
24. One Winter Proposal (air date: January 12) – 535 pts – weighted score: 95.8 (67.2%)
25. Just Add Romance (air date: March 2) – 548 pts – weighted score: 95.6 (67.1%)
26. From Friend to Fiance (air date: May 25) – 555 pts – weighted score: 94.8% (66.5%)
27. Christmas Camp (air date: July 11) – 530 pts – weighted score: 93.9 (65.9%)
28. Love and Sunshine (air date: Aug 3) – 504 pts – weighted score: 91.7 (64.3%)
29. Crossword Mysteries: A Puzzle to Die For (air date: March 10 (HMM) – 354 pts – weighted score: 74.1 (63.3%)
30. Sister of the Bride (air date: June 29) – 516 pts – weighted score: 89.8 (63.0%)
31. Valentine in the Vineyard (air date: February 2) – 503 pts – weighted score: 89.5 (62.8%)
32. Love, Take Two (air date: June 15) – 507 pts – weighted score: 87.8 (61.6%)
33. All Summer Long (air date: Aug 24) – 512 pts – weighted score: 87.7 (61.5%)
34. Snowcoming (air date: January 26) – 485 pts – weighted score: 87.3 (61.2%)
35. The Winter Castle (air date: January 5) – 475 pts – weighted score: 85.9 (60.2%)
36. A Merry Christmas Match (air date: Oct 25) – 455 pts – weighted score: 78.3 (54.9%)
37. Sailing Into Love (air date: May 18) – 455 pts – weighted score: 78.0 (54.7%)
38. Rome in Love (air date: July 27) – 436 pts – weighted score: 76.7 (53.8%)
39. A Taste of Summer (air date: Aug 10) – 403 pts – weighted score: 70.9 (49.7%)
40. A Winter Princess (air date: January 18) – 380 pts – weighted score: 70.5 (49.5%)
41. A Feeling of Home (air date: May 11) – 386 pts – weighted score: 69.7% (48.9%)
42. Love in the Sun (air date: June 1) – 361 pts – weighted score: 62.5 (43.8%)

To see where this movie lands in my overall rankings of Hallmark movies, visit my Hallmark Movie Rankings page!

What did you think of “A Merry Christmas  Match”?  Comment below and let me know!

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