Lifetime Christmas Movie Review: A Christmas in Tennessee (dir by Gary Yates)

Posted on December 25, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

How do they celebrate Christmas in Tennessee?

With a lot of down home love!

Or, at least, that’s what I learned from watching this Lifetime Christmas movie.

A Christmas In Tennessee is the latest in a long line of Lifetime Christmas movies that make a big deal about where they’re set. In the past, we’ve had Christmas in Mississippi and a Christmas in Vermont and I imagine that, at some point, we’ll have a Kansas Christmas or an Iowa Christmas. The thing that these films always have in common is a strong sense of nostalgia. These are films that tell us, “You can run off to New York, California, or Toronto but your heart will always remain in either the South or one of the smaller New England hamlets.”

In the case of the film, it’s Alison Bennett (Rachel Boston) who attempted to leave town, heading off to the big city so that she could become a big time French pastry shop. However, when she became pregnant, she moved back home and got a job working in her family’s bakery. Now, years later, it appears that the bakery is about to go out of business and her daughter, Olivia, is writing letters to Santa in which she begs Santa for money. Since the town traditionally publishes all letters to Santa in the newspaper, Alison is worried that everyone is going to realize how bad her situation is.

Meanwhile, Matthew (Andrew W. Walker) has come to town. Matthew is charming and handsome and actually rather nice but he works for a real estate developer who wants to buy the town square. Matthew is ambitious. He wants a promotion. The only way he’s going to get it is to get his hands on that property. However, to do that, he has to convince Alison to sign over the land to him. Alison could really use the money but there’s no way that she’s going to betray the town that she calls home. That’s not the way things are done in Tennessee!

And then …. okay, let me stop to catch my breath here. There’s a lot going on in this movie.

*breathes*

Okay …. and then, two mysterious strangers stop by the bakery. One of them has a white beard and a jolly manner. The other is his wife and is played by Caroline Rhea. Olivia takes one look at these two strangers and decides that 1) the man is Santa Claus and 2) Santa loves her mother’s cookies! It’s time to write another letter to Santa.

Well, of course, Olivia’s letter about Santa’s favorite cookies goes viral. (It even appears as a story on “Buzz News.”) So, can Alison use her new found fame to save the town?

A Christmas in Tennessee is okay. How you react to it will probably have a lot to do with how you feel about Lifetime and Hallmark Christmas films in general. If you like them, you’ll like this one. At heart, it’s a sweet movie and both Rachel Boston and Andrew W. Walker give sincere performances. It’s an idealized version of Christmas and who doesn’t love that this time of year?

I look forward to discovering which state we’ll visit next year.

Cleaning Out The DVR: Snowed-Inn Christmas (dir by Gary Yates)

Posted on December 20, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Hi there! So, as you may know because I’ve been talking about it on this site all year, I have got way too much stuff on my DVR. Seriously, I currently have 193 things recorded! I’ve decided that, on January 15th, I am going to erase everything on the DVR, regardless of whether I’ve watched it or not. So, that means that I’ve now have only have a month to clean out the DVR! Will I make it? Keep checking this site to find out! I recorded Snowed-Inn Christmas off of Lifetime on December 16th!)

Oh, Christmas movies on Lifetime!

Seriously, Lifetime totally changes during the Christmas season. For one month, everything that we normally associate with Lifetime disappears. Gone are all of the films about being stalked by my doctor or betrayed by my lover or deceived by my house guest. Suddenly, Eric Roberts is no longer plotting to kill Haylie Duff. No one’s daughter is getting abducted and sold into slavery. The houses remain grand and the clothes are still often to die for but, otherwise, Lifetime changes during Christmas. Suddenly, it’s safe to fall in love with that handsome stranger. The internet is no longer the root of all evil. Instead, it’s now become a place where a harried single mother can find a handsome single father and hire him to play Santa Claus at a department store. Lifetime changes for Christmas and we all love it.

Of course, there’s never anything surprising about Lifetime Christmas movies. They pretty much all follow the same plot and that’s one reason why we love them. The holidays can be stressful, especially when you can’t go on twitter without being implored to “take it to the streets.” Lifetime films (and Hallmark films) provide an escape from all that. They’re a trip into a much more innocent past.

Take Snowed-Inn Christmas for, example. That’s not a typo. While this film does deal with people being snowed in, it also largely takes place in an inn. The inn is located in Santa Claus, Indiana. It’s owned by Carol (Belinda Montgomery) and Chris (John B. Lowe). Yes, they both wear red. Yes, Chris has a white beard and an infectious laugh. Did you expect any less?

Evil developers want to tear down the inn. If there’s one thing that I’ve learned from watching Christmas Lifetime films, it’s that land developers never have the holiday spirit. They always want to kick people out of their homes right before Christmas. They always want to build a ski resort or a luxury condo or something.

The only thing that can save the inn is if proof is found that the inn is a historical landmark. Fortunately, two online journalists, Jenna (Bethany Joy Lenz) and Kevin (Andrew Walker), are staying at the inn. Kevin is the type of guy who eats a slice of pizza for breakfast. Jenna uses an electric toothbrush. That’s really all of the character development that they get but that’s okay. Walker is handsome. Lenz is pretty. Both of them can deliver potentially silly lines with sincerity. They’re likable and that’s all a film like this really requires.

Anyway, at the start of the film, neither Jenna nor Kevin have the Christmas spirit. They’re not in love with each other, either. How much you want to bet that will change as they work to save the inn from being bulldozed? How much do you want to bet that their burgeoning relationship will be encourages by Carol and Chris, both of whom always have a twinkle in their eye regardless of how close their inn is to being destroyed.

Online, some critics have pointed out that Snowed-Inn Christmas is basically a remake of The Flight Before Christmas. That may be true but who cares? All of these Lifetime Christmas films are essentially remakes of each other. That’s why we love them. Snowed-Inn Christmas delivers exactly what it needs to deliver. It’s a silly but sweet little movie.

Cleaning Out The DVR: Last Chance For Christmas (dir by Gary Yates)

Posted on December 22, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

After I watched The Christmas Gift, I continued to clean out the DVR by watching Last Chance For Christmas. Last Chance for Christmas originally aired on Lifetime on December 6th and it took me a second viewing to realize that, as far as Lifetime holiday movies are concerned, Last Chance For Christmas was actually pretty good.

Annie (Hilarie Burton) lives in a small town in Alaska, along with her daughter Madison (Lola Flanery). Annie owns a reindeer farm, which is her inheritance from her father. The bank is eager to foreclose on her and take the farm away from her. It’s all because Mr. Buckley (who is somewhat inevitably played by Tim Matheson) wants to build a ski resort on her property.

Desperate but still defiant (which is why I liked her), Annie is understandably paranoid when John (Gabriel Hogan) suddenly shows up on her doorstep and says that he needs to borrow one of her reindeer. She assumes that John must be working for either the bank or Mr. Buckley.

Which she doesn’t know is that John’s boss lives up north. For the past 15 years, John has worked for Santa Claus (Derek McGrath). John is in charge of the stables and taking care of Santa’s reindeer. When Prancer cracks a hoof, it’s crisis time at the North Pole. As John explains it, without Prancer, it could take three to four months to deliver all of the presents. John even suggests that they may have to delay Christmas or cancel it altogether…

That’s when Mrs. Claus (Jayne Eastwood) steps forward and announces that, under no circumstances, will Christmas be canceled. As she puts it, the children will get their gifts “by any means necessary.” John is sent into the human world, instructed to track down a replacement reindeer. And he thinks that he’s found one on Annie’s farm.

The problem, of course, is that the reindeer — named Frankie — is Madison’s favorite. As John slowly starts to win Annie’s trust (and as he and Annie fall in love), he realizes that he cannot bring himself to take Frankie away from Madison. However, when he explains this to Mrs. Claus, she tells him that the needs of the many outweighs the needs of the few. If John isn’t willing to steal Frankie then maybe Mrs. Claus will have to come do it herself…

And really, the portrayal of Mrs. Claus as being the ruthless head of a crime syndicate was perhaps the best thing about this film. It was so unexpectedly dark and almost cynical. As well, Jayne Eastwood was obviously having a lot of fun playing this very unsentimental version of Mrs. Claus.

Beyond the subversive portrayal of Mrs. Claus, Last Chance For Christmas was a genuinely entertaining film. Hilarie Burton and Gabriel Hogan made for a cute couple, Lola Flanery gave a blessedly non-cutesy performance as Madison, and the snowy scenery was nice to look at. All in all, Last Chance for Christmas is a perfect example of the correct way to do a holiday movie.