Christmas Class Reunion is one of those Hallmark holiday films that has all the right ingredients but the movie is just not fully baked. This makes for an annoying adventure in Hartford Connecticut.
This time around we follow Elle (a mousey Aimee Teegarden) who apparently is one of the most successful corporate millennials in the nation even though she portrays almost zero corporate wherewithal and has a personal brand that more aligns with a county tax accountant. Elle is successful, confident, and knows what she wants, at least for the first 80% of the film until she has the obligatory meltdown around being 'forced to achieve' and 'expectations.' Except (for this movie at least) debating her purpose and drive in life is totally out of place because she did such a good job selling us her confidence and comfort with her life decisions the first hour and 40 minutes. Cringe x1000.
Tanner Novlan plays the love interest Devin who seems to be enjoying his time on set. This white jock like character with class clown tendencies is paired with the obligatory biracial STEM focused daughter Skylar (a fabulous Yasmeen Kelders) who enjoys coding databases of all things (In IT databases are not exciting - they are complicated, confusing, and require data to function, nobody codes them for fun). This setup is totally forced a la 2022 however these two really work well when on screen together. My favorite scenes in the whole thing included this spunky daughter and her Dad. I really loved how Yasmeen works with and breaks out of her limited stock character role.
The same can't be said for the leads. Elle often looks unsure and confused while making very poor assumptions regarding her career future that conflict with her 35 under 35 fame. At least they kill off her corporate job so she can avoid giving it up for a man she just met like all other Hallmark movies. Devin is introduced as a goof off who doesn't bother to attend planning meetings for the high school dance yet he grows up to run an event catering business?? That requires like all the skills we are told he doesn't have. Sigh.
I should also mention Samantha and her gay stylist James. I liked James, he is unapologetically gay, gives good advice, and adds a breath of fresh air creating much needed depth to the cast. Despite being total cliche, his unplanned love interest subplot was well done. Sam (a why-am-I-here Stephanie Bennett) doesn't get this kind of attention in the script and becomes the forgotten one. She is a background friend to begin with, and ends staying a background friend. Yes she lands a new job but her personal journey and arch are much discussed but left with no payoff...she just accepts the reality she doesn't like as if there is no fixing it.
I am going to avoid the love bird couple - zero chemistry which made me convinced they were heading for divorce court then for no apparent reason they go totally goo-goo-ga-ga over each other. The wife actually delivered a solid performance of a confused, estranged, annoyed wife who wants to move on but is just not sure how to eliminate the guy from her life. The guy does a pretty good job of the standard 'husband just doesn't get it' schtick, but I think this was real, like he as an actor didn't know how to deal with the actress playing his wife oozing contempt at him.
All in all Christmas Class Reunion could have, and should have, been so much more. It gets six stars for not being terrible but not really working, either.
This time around we follow Elle (a mousey Aimee Teegarden) who apparently is one of the most successful corporate millennials in the nation even though she portrays almost zero corporate wherewithal and has a personal brand that more aligns with a county tax accountant. Elle is successful, confident, and knows what she wants, at least for the first 80% of the film until she has the obligatory meltdown around being 'forced to achieve' and 'expectations.' Except (for this movie at least) debating her purpose and drive in life is totally out of place because she did such a good job selling us her confidence and comfort with her life decisions the first hour and 40 minutes. Cringe x1000.
Tanner Novlan plays the love interest Devin who seems to be enjoying his time on set. This white jock like character with class clown tendencies is paired with the obligatory biracial STEM focused daughter Skylar (a fabulous Yasmeen Kelders) who enjoys coding databases of all things (In IT databases are not exciting - they are complicated, confusing, and require data to function, nobody codes them for fun). This setup is totally forced a la 2022 however these two really work well when on screen together. My favorite scenes in the whole thing included this spunky daughter and her Dad. I really loved how Yasmeen works with and breaks out of her limited stock character role.
The same can't be said for the leads. Elle often looks unsure and confused while making very poor assumptions regarding her career future that conflict with her 35 under 35 fame. At least they kill off her corporate job so she can avoid giving it up for a man she just met like all other Hallmark movies. Devin is introduced as a goof off who doesn't bother to attend planning meetings for the high school dance yet he grows up to run an event catering business?? That requires like all the skills we are told he doesn't have. Sigh.
I should also mention Samantha and her gay stylist James. I liked James, he is unapologetically gay, gives good advice, and adds a breath of fresh air creating much needed depth to the cast. Despite being total cliche, his unplanned love interest subplot was well done. Sam (a why-am-I-here Stephanie Bennett) doesn't get this kind of attention in the script and becomes the forgotten one. She is a background friend to begin with, and ends staying a background friend. Yes she lands a new job but her personal journey and arch are much discussed but left with no payoff...she just accepts the reality she doesn't like as if there is no fixing it.
I am going to avoid the love bird couple - zero chemistry which made me convinced they were heading for divorce court then for no apparent reason they go totally goo-goo-ga-ga over each other. The wife actually delivered a solid performance of a confused, estranged, annoyed wife who wants to move on but is just not sure how to eliminate the guy from her life. The guy does a pretty good job of the standard 'husband just doesn't get it' schtick, but I think this was real, like he as an actor didn't know how to deal with the actress playing his wife oozing contempt at him.
All in all Christmas Class Reunion could have, and should have, been so much more. It gets six stars for not being terrible but not really working, either.