Low Stakes but Utterly Charming
While I focus mostly on Hallmark’s mystery movies, a few of their other movies had popped up on my radar recently. Since some of their stars are migrating over to the Great American Family channel, that made me curious about their movies. I started with Catering Christmas, which was a very light romantic comedy set at Christmas.
Molly Frost (Merritt Patterson) is working hard to get her catering company, Molly’s Menu Magic, off the ground. Since she lives in a small town, it’s hard, especially since all the big jobs seem to go to her chief competition in town.
Then, just a week before the event, the Harrison Foundation Gala needs a new caterer. Molly is shocked when she lands the gig, especially after an embarrassing run in with Carson Harrison (Daniel Lissing). Carson has been making his living as an event photographer, but his aunt Jean (Rosemary Dunsmore) is trying to get him to return and take over the foundation. As a first step, he agrees to be in charge of the food. What will happen as Carson and Molly spend time working together?
Okay, so you can easily guess just based on that teaser. And you’d be mostly right. The focus of the movie is the romance. I was actually surprised to find that some of the expected complications related to the event and Molly’s catering didn’t materialize. Not that I’m complaining. It was actually refreshing to not have those beats pop up.
However, when it comes to the romance, we definitely have the expected beats. There’s the meet cute, for example. That happens a couple of times. There is a sub-plot involving something else for the gala and you can see the solution to that coming fairly early on. Yet when it does, it is still charming.
Watching, I couldn’t help but notice how low budget the film was, even by low budget movie standards. A few minor characters are discussed but never appear, and there are even few background actors who never speak. Heck, the gala is for twenty-five? Seriously? That’s the social event of the year?
Normally, I’d also mention the Hallmark cheese, but since this didn’t air on Hallmark, I’ll have to refer to it is low budget cheese going forward, I guess. That is here, not only in the lack of characters, but in some of the dialogue and the acting. Don’t worry, most of the time the acting is fine, but there is the occasional moment that throws you out of the movie.
But here’s the thing, taking all of this into account, I had a great time watching the movie. It helps that the sets looked great, and it put me in the Christmas spirit, even as I watched this months ago while taking down my Christmas tree. I was rooting for Molly and Carson, and I believed they were falling for each other. The chemistry between them was fabulous.
I do tend to rate movies based on how much I liked them and against other movies of the genre. Objectively, I know that Catering Christmas has flaws. But as a low budget made for TV movie, it worked for me. As I’ve already said, I found it charming. And I was smiling as the movie ended. Since that’s all that I was looking for, I’m happy.
So if you are looking for a light Christmas romance and don’t mind low budget, check out Catering Christmas. Its fun overshadows its flaws.
I watched one GAC Christmas movie last year and didn't really like it. I thought the plot was very slow, even for GAC/Hallmark standards. I'll record this one tonight and give it a try. It does look pretty good. I have another GAC one recorded that I want to watch too, but I can't remember the name. I just know it stars two actors I liked on Hallmark. I can't remember their names either. It's a good thing my DVR remembers all of this. Lol. :-)
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