The Christmas Clause (2008 TV Movie) User Reviews

Nothing Original Here

[Christmas-Reviewer · 5/10 · 3 October 2016]

Lea Thompsom stars as Sophie Kelly is a top-rated lawyer with three kids and a husband that take up all her time. All of her family and work stress comes to a chaotic halt at the shopping mall, days before Christmas, when she sees Santa and wishes for a different life. However, the grass is not always greener as a single, successful lawyer with her own firm and the most eligible bachelor vying for her attention. Freedom has its price as she realizes the sweet life is not so sweet and must race against time to find the true meaning of family and love before Christmas Day.

Now I could see why Sophie wanted a different life in this film. Her daughter are brats and her husband is unemployed. She has a boss that doesn't respect working mothers. I find hard to believe that she would want her old life back!

I highly doubt anybody would like this film.

A Christmas surprise...

[paul_haakonsen · 6/10 · 8 November 2016]

Right, well first of all I must admit that I am not a sucker for holiday-themed movies, and especially not Christmas holiday movies, because they are a dime a dozen. However, I still decided to sit down to watch "The Mrs. Clause" (aka "The Christmas Clause") because it had Lea Thompson in it.

It turned out that "The Mrs. Clause" turned out to be better than I had hoped it would be. And that was because it had a good story which didn't really turn out to be all too-Christmassy and sappy. And it helped that Lea Thompson also really put on a good performance in the movie.

The story is about an over-worked lawyer and a mother of three gets a wish at the local mall when she sits down on Santa's lap. Her wish is to have the life of a former friend, and little does she expect that her wish will actually come true. But she finds out that the lavish lifestyle is not all as glamorous as she thought it would be, especially not when it comes at the expense of her former life with her husband and three children.

Sure, the storyline is something that has been seen before, but it was still skillfully delivered to the screen by director George Erschbamer, and that made it worthwhile to sit through this movie and watch it to the end.

I believe that "The Mrs. Clause" is a movie that will appeal mostly to a female audience. But hey, we shouldn't put movie in boxes. Do give it a chance, even if you are a man (such as myself), you might actually turn out to enjoy this Christmas movie.

It is by no means a Christmas classic, but it still turned out to be worth watching and turned out to be an enjoyable movie. However, I dare say that "The Mrs. Clause" is hardly a movie that you will watch more than a single time.

A Lea Thompson Christmas

[P3n-E-W1s3 · 5/10 · 22 December 2016]

I'm glad this aired under the title "The Christmas Clause" as the original is misleading The Mrs. Clause - and I would've been heartbroken not to see Lea Thompson as Mrs. Clause (I can see the outfit now...).

What you have here is a middling Christmas movie. Everything about this film is average. The script, the direction, the acting (except for Lea Thompson, who is not brilliant in this, but better than average).

It looks like the writers and the director were going for a cliché- ridden movie as in one section Lea's character asks the Santa "Stand-In" - "could this be more clichéd?" But after a very short while, cliché- ing clichés falls flat. And though we all know how this story will end, after all, it is a Christmas film, the writer and director drag it out to the point where you're screaming at the telly, "COME ON ALREADY, FINISH THIS THING!"

If you're a Lea Thompson fan and have yet to watch this I say go for it.

I've watched this movie twice now, it didn't get better with age.

Writer preempts critics

[HallmarkMovieBuff · 12 December 2009]

What we have here is an exercise in how many clichés, in both characters and plot, one can stick into a single script. This objective is achieved for all practical purposes in the first ten minutes as cliché after cliché, and cliché within cliché, rolls forth about a lawyer's difficulties in balancing a loving but jobless husband, three darling but unruly children, and a pompous, unsympathetic boss.

But what else can a writer do to dramatize a lesson presented by countless Christmas tales told throughout the years, the lesson that above all, family is most important? Not far into the proceedings, shortly after the viewer has had a chance to realize what's going on, lead actor Lea Thompson utters the line, "Could this be any more clichéd?" That's what's known as a writer's gotcha, self-awareness made explicit.

Where this installment stumbles, however, is less in the story than in the execution. While other Christmas movies, particularly many done by Hallmark, have carried just, or nearly, as many clichés, they have generally come off more convincingly, even when fantasy elements were included.

After a mall Santa miraculously plops Sophie (Thompson's character) into the life she thinks she'd rather have, a life filled with a big house, a maid, the boss' job, and lots of furs, clichés start streaming in from the other side of life. The rest of the movie is spent exploring how Sophie can get her old life back. She does, of course, recover that old, messy life she had before, but with a few improvements tossed in from lessons learned. All loose ends are neatly tied in a Christmas bow, and "all's well that ends well."

There you have it. That plus the fact that none of the fifty-six people before me who have rated this movie in the year since its release has apparently considered it worthy enough to justify a comment, you now finally have enough information to decide whether or not you want to spend two hours watching this, or not, the next time it rolls around.

Addendum: If you want to see a nearly identical movie better executed, check out A Family Thanksgiving (TV 2010).

Lea Thompson holds together a weak film

[studioAT · 2/10 · 3 December 2017]

Known as 'All I want for Christmas' here in the UK this film/TV movie is watchable only for a likable performance from Lea Thompson, and then only just.

Using the tried and tested 'It's a Wonderful Life' trick, this is about a stressed out mother who wishes she could have a seemingly more successful and happier woman's life, only of course to realise that her own life was pretty darn great in the first place.

Lea Thompson shines, but everything else about this film is weak, from script to the acting of the other people involved.

I like Lea Thompson, but this isn't a great festive film.

Absolute waste of time

[kefalasgeorge · 2/10 · 2 December 2022]

Basically I watched this film just to see how far American idiocy would go and I was not disappointed. The movie is utterly ridiculous not only as a concept but as plot ,acting which is so incredibly weak that the characters come out as caricatures. The directing is not that impressive either . All in all whoever made this film was either high or was simply aware of his target audience which is naive , illiterate Americans. The woman who is supposedly an attorney in typical American fashion can't even speak English properly. At one point she utters "I would have sAng " instead of the correct "sUng". Of course this is such a small matter but indicative of how these people live.

The only thing more shocking than the film is the parenting.

[brendanrobertotoole · 1/10 · 6 December 2022]

Absolutely shocking film. How people can say otherwise is beyond comprehension. Terrible acting from the one person everyone is claiming was great in this film... She wasn't.

The worst part of this film though is the plot. The wife seems to run around complaining a lot whilst doing a terrible job of parenting (worse than the husband who just tried to get on with things whilst she makes a huge deal out of everything) and somehow were expected to feel sorry for her. The expression woe is me must have been invented for this woman.

To make things worse this was filmed on a potato, even for the time and somehow manages to look dubbed, but isn't.

dreaming of life being different can change you Xmas wishes

[lark40 · 5/10 · 29 November 2015]

so we see Sophia played by a good lea Thompson from back to the future playing a stressed out mother who is a lawyer she does so much there is never time for herself and she goes shopping with her children she so worked up she wishes she had a new life for some mysterious the Santa thats there gives this woman a look into her shows what life would be like with out her family and how she would become if she done things different this film is a great reminder of who is in your life and not take them for granted But these same characterizations help you bond with Ms. Thompson and her predicaments, ala George Bailey. The actors are all cliché'd here, in much the same way, and there are plot points and character holes that never get resolved. But if you take it all "on the cuff" and assume a happy outcome for all, you'll never miss those things. Picture this as a "It's a Wonderful Life" remake and twisted slightly.this film has its good and bad points with a stalking Santa giving her glimpses of her new life but this sappy Xmas movie whats not love about this while under the Xmas lights 6/10 film its not that bad acting is OK but its the small things that matter

Nothing say Chrismas Movie like a Terrible Life

[docm-32304 · 2/10 · 20 December 2021]

I have no idea how you can call this a Christmas movie. Yes, for once there is some Christmas fantasy and the santa was well played. But Lea Thompson (and I have no idea why raters were gushing over that) was a train wreck from start to finish, no matter what her situation in life was. This film was tedious, stressful and out and out aweful to the point that it is virtually unwatchable. Do not recommend.

Lea Thompson. Nuff said.

[rightisright · 7/10 · 11 November 2018]

I may be biased, but I'll watch anything with Lea Thompson. I watched 5 years of that wretched Switched at Birth just to see her every week. As for the Christmas Clause... It's a tried and true cable movie story. But Miss Thompson fills the story with life. Her comic skills carry the movie. I also loved her "Angel".

Not an attention-getter, but not a complete waste of time either.

[rich-320 · 7/10 · 14 December 2009]

OK, I kind of agree with TCMjunkie. But, I'd rate it a little higher. Lea Thompson can be engaging and definitely has not had the best career success. This movie isn't going to reverse that trend. Ms. Thompson cavorts around pixie-like and aside from the beginning lament, never demonstrates that she could become any different than the person she was destined to be; so this is where the story suffers the most. But these same characterizations help you bond with Ms. Thompson and her predicaments, ala George Bailey. The actors are all cliché'd here, in much the same way, and there are plot points and character holes that never get resolved. But if you take it all "on the cuff" and assume a happy outcome for all, you'll never miss those things. Picture this as a "It's a Wonderful Life" remake and twisted slightly.

You could do a lot worse than watching this Holiday Movie, say, while making cookies, or wrapping presents. It's sappy, but what Xmas movie isn't?

Like it for Lea Thompson.

[TxMike · 4 December 2010]

I like Lea Thompson. I actually fell in love with her in the "Back to the Future" movies. Unfortunately she married someone else and missed out on me when I became single in the late 1980s. Her loss.

Here she is a harried mother of 3, and also a successful lawyer with an aggressive law firm. That in itself made it hard for her to spend quality time with her children and their activities.

She makes a wish for some rest, and it is granted. In fact she finds herself single, none of her children had been born, and her husband is about to marry someone else.

After dealing with those developments, Santa Clause shows up and, even though she thought she had missed the deadline to make things right, Santa was still on Las Vegas time, so she wished for her life back, and got it. It was an awakening, and she promised to do it better the next time. One of her first actions was to resign from the law firm.

This theme has been done in other movies, it is not novel. Nic Cage, in "The Family Man", for example, which is a better movie. But those of us who are Lea Thompson fans, it is a good diversion.

I saw it on the ION TV network.