Hallmark For All Seasons

Countdown to Christmas 2019

Hallmark’s “Write Before Christmas”

“Write Before Christmas” aired on Hallmark Channel on Sunday, November 17 at 8 p.m. I’ll be curious to see the final ratings for Sunday night since this movie was in direct competition with the new Godwink movie which aired on sister channel, Hallmark Movies & Mysteries at 9 p.m. (review will be posted tomorrow). “Write” starred a few “One Tree Hill” alums, such as Chad Michael Murray, Torrey DeVitto and Drew Seeley. There was another storyline that featured Lolita Davidovich and Grant Show (he of “Melrose Place” back in the day). The movie was filmed entirely in Vancouver, Canada.

In a nutshell

I initially thought I would love this movie because it had hints of “To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before” in that the main character sends 5 Christmas cards to people that have meant something to her. But then it took a nosedive straight into “Love, Actually” territory and completely turned me off.

I still think it had some strong points, but the scattered storylines meant a lack of connection to the characters, despite good chemistry from those involved.

Write Before Christmas — image: Hallmark Crown Media

Plot

Jessica, a music shop owner, breaks up with her boyfriend and opts to send special Christmas cards to five people who have impacted her life — the aunt who raised her, her younger brother in the military, a popstar who was part of the soundtrack of her life, the music teacher who inspired her, and the best friend who always tells the truth.

Actors

The cast was great – Murray and DeVitto are very well suited to each other both in temperament and responsiveness to each other on screen. I had issues with their storyline, but they themselves were great.

I also really enjoyed seeing Davidovich and Show together in a storyline that revolved around a widow finding puppy love thanks to a handsome neighbor, although I admit I had to google them to find out their ages because I associate Davidovich with being significantly older than I am, and Show to be my age or younger. Turns out they are both older than me and only one year apart from each other. So it shows you how much I (don’t) know. *lol* And it took me a couple scenes to realize who Grant Show was – I kept thinking, “I know that guy from somewhere…” and then finally I said (out loud to myself because no one else was around “That’s the dude from ‘Melrose Place’!”).

There was a third couple in the movie, Jessica’s brother Carter, who was serving in the military overseas. When I iMDb’d the guy that played Carter (Madison Smith), I laughed because he has on his bio the fact that he worked on a little TV movie called, “The Unauthorized Melrose Place Story” which cracks me up. Oh how I wished he had scenes with Grant Show so I could imagine what conversations were had about that.

As for Six Degrees of Kris Polaha, Chad Michael Murray is only two steps away. He had a role in 2013’s”Fruitvale Station” alongside Kevin Durand, who shared a screen with Polaha that same with in “Devil’s Knot.”

Chemistry

The majority of the cast worked well together. It’s a shame that Seeley’s character had almost no connection whatsoever to the rest of the story going on, but I suppose that was the whole point. But it would have been fun to see him somehow get in the mix with the other characters even peripherally. But I had NO COMPLAINTS whatsoever about the various characters and the actors who portrayed them.

Feelgoods

As much as I hate “Love, Actually,” and was predisposed to not like this movie, I did have one feel during the movie: when Luke gave Jessica his mother’s cello as a gift. I thought that was very sweet for him to do that, knowing how much Jessica’s childhood cello teacher inspired her.

Tropes

“Write Before Christmas” really only had a few tropes that I noticed.

The movie started with an opening drone shot of a big city skyline, and heavily featured our 90s tv star, Grant Show. Additionally, we got a cute dog, a character with dead parents, and not one, but TWO “mistaking the situation for something it’s not” scenarios.

Bingo Card Score for “Write Before Christmas”

Would you believe I only covered four spots on my bingo card, and one of them was the free space in the middle? So disappointing.

Did I Hear/See That Right?

So let’s talk about the quibbles and then the big ideas.

First, the Aunt’s mailbox flag was up when she went to get her mail, and she put it down after the takes it out of the box. Doesn’t it work the other way around, or am I living in a bizarro world?

Second, when Jessica auditions for the orchestra seat, in one shot she has no music, and in another shot she has a music stand with music in front of her. That’s just a continuity mistake.

Third, when during Jax and his fellow boy band members’ interview, the boy band has ONE MIC to talk into during the interview. Now I’ve not worked in radio for 30 years or more, but I do know that one mic does not have the coverage needed to adequately capture the comments of the other two singers. Could the prop master not nab two more mics? Really?

My biggest pet peeve with this movie was the attempt to garner good will be directly copying “Love, Actually.” I clocked it last night and in a movie where we are supposed to root for Jessica and Luke to get together, there is a 30+ minute stretch where the characters do not interact in a single scene thanks to the double “mistaken situations” and the fact that there were two other storylines the screenwriters had to get in there.

Had they gotten rid of the unnecessary Jax storyline completely, I’d be fine with the remaining three stories because at least Jessica, Carter and their aunt are all related to each other as family. And by getting rid of the Jax storyline, we’d have been given 8-10 minutes of content with these other characters.

Re-watchability

I’m not sure I’d watch “Write Before Christmas” again unless there was literally nothing else on TV at the time. It wasn’t terrible, but sticking four stories into one 90 minute movie (minus commercials) does not make for compelling storytelling. I suspect if I watched this on fast-forward to see only the Jessica/Luke storyline, I’d get done in 22 minutes or less.

The Ranking

Another movie settling into the lower middle. I have high hopes for the Godwink movie, which I’ll watch tonight and review tomorrow. But for the other movies this weekend, two were middle of the pack and one just missed the Top 20.

Two Turtle Doves (air date: Nov 1) – 742 pts – weighted score: 123.7 (86.8%)
Christmas Wishes and Mistletoe Kisses (air date: Oct 26) – 719 pts – weighted score: 121.0 (84.9%)
Love to the Rescue RE-RANKED (air date: March 23) – 708 pts – weighted score: 120.6 (84.6%)
Winter Love Story (air date: January 19) – 685 pts – weighted score: 115.8 (81.2%)
Mystery 101 (air date: January 27 (HMM)) – 454 pts – weighted score: 94.2 (80.5%)
Love on the Menu (air date: February 23) – 642 pts – weighted score: 113.8 (79.9%)
Bottled With Love (air date: April 13) – 649 pts – weighted score: 112.2 (78.7%)
Love Takes Flight (air date: April 27) – 670 pts – weighted score: 111.0 (77.9%)
Love, Romance & Chocolate (air date: February 16) – 627 pts – weighted score: 110.2 (77.3%)
The Last Bridesmaid (air date: June 22) – 643 pts – weighted score: 109.2 (76.6%)
Love, Fall and Order (air date: Oct 12) – 636 pts – weighted score: 109.0 (76.5%)
Paris, Wine & Romance (air date: May 4) – 638 pts – weighted score: 108.3 (76.0%)
My Boyfriend’s Back: Wedding March 5 (air date: June 8) – 635 pts – weighted score: 108.0 (75.8%)
Over the Moon in Love (air date: Oct 5) – 613 pts – weighted score: 106.3 (74.6%)
Flip That Romance (air date: March 16) – 597 pts – weighted score: 105.8 (74.2%)
My One and Only (air date: Aug 31) – 597 pts – weighted score: 105.6 (74.1%)
Mystery 101: Playing Dead (air date: June 23 (HMM)) – 425 pts – weighted score: 86.5 (73.9%)
A Summer Romance (air date: Aug 17) – 577 pts – weighted score: 103.7 (72.7%)
True Love Blooms (air date: April 6) – 598 pts – weighted score: 103.1 (72.3%)
Forever in My Heart (air date: Sept 14) – 560 pts – weighted score: 102.4 (71.8%)
The Mistletoe Secret (air date: Nov 11) – 585 pts – weighted score: 102.2 (71.7%)
Christmas Under the Stars (air date: Nov 16) – 576 pts – weighted score: 101.8 (71.4%)
The Story of Us (air date: February 9) – 605 pts – weighted score: 101.3 (71.1%)
Holiday for Heroes (air date: Nov 8) – 566 pts – weighted score: 99.8 (70.0%)
A Brush with Love (air date: March 30) – 563 pts – weighted score: 97.7 (68.6%)
Ruby Herring: Silent Witness (air date: January 20 (HMM)) – 357 pts – weighted score: 79.5 (67.9%)
Love, Unleashed (air date: July 6, 2019) – 559 pts – weighted score: 96.2 (67.5%)
Love Under the Rainbow (air date: March 9) – 581 pts – weighted score: 96.0 (67.4%)
One Winter Proposal (air date: January 12) – 535 pts – weighted score: 95.8 (67.2%)
Just Add Romance (air date: March 2) – 548 pts – weighted score: 95.6 (67.1%)
Christmas Scavenger Hunt (air date: Nov 3) – 561 pts – weighted score: 95.4 (66.9%)
From Friend to Fiance (air date: May 25) – 555 pts – weighted score: 94.8% (66.5%)
Picture a Perfect Christmas (air date: Nov 10) – 529 pts – weighted score: 94.6 (66.4%)
Write Before Christmas (air date: Nov 17) – 529 pts – weighted score: 94.1 (66.0%)
Christmas Camp (air date: July 11) – 530 pts – weighted score: 93.9 (65.9%)
Love and Sunshine (air date: Aug 3) – 504 pts – weighted score: 91.7 (64.3%)
Crossword Mysteries: A Puzzle to Die For (air date: March 10 (HMM) – 354 pts – weighted score: 74.1 (63.3%)
A Christmas Miracle (air date: Nov 14) – 494 pts – weighted score: 90.1 (63.2%)
Sister of the Bride (air date: June 29) – 516 pts – weighted score: 89.8 (63.0%)
Valentine in the Vineyard (air date: February 2) – 503 pts – weighted score: 89.5 (62.8%)
Love, Take Two (air date: June 15) – 507 pts – weighted score: 87.8 (61.6%)
All Summer Long (air date: Aug 24) – 512 pts – weighted score: 87.7 (61.5%)
Snowcoming (air date: January 26) – 485 pts – weighted score: 87.3 (61.2%)
The Winter Castle (air date: January 5) – 475 pts – weighted score: 85.9 (60.2%)
Merry & Bright (air date: Nov 2) – 483 pts – weighted score: 84.4 (59.2%)
Nostalgic Christmas (air date: Oct 31) – 446 pts – weighted score: 79.2 (55.6%)
A Merry Christmas Match (air date: Oct 25) – 455 pts – weighted score: 78.3 (54.9%)
Sailing Into Love (air date: May 18) – 455 pts – weighted score: 78.0 (54.7%)
Rome in Love (air date: July 27) – 436 pts – weighted score: 76.7 (53.8%)
A Blue Ridge Mountain Christmas (air date: Nov 7) – 398 pts – weighted score: 72.3 (50.7%)
A Taste of Summer (air date: Aug 10) – 403 pts – weighted score: 70.9 (49.7%)
A Winter Princess (air date: January 18) – 380 pts – weighted score: 70.5 (49.5%)
A Feeling of Home (air date: May 11) – 386 pts – weighted score: 69.7% (48.9%)
Love in the Sun (air date: June 1) – 361 pts – weighted score: 62.5 (43.8%)