Never Been Chris'd

Tyler Haynes and Janel Parrish are of my favorite Hallmark actors and I looked forward to seeing them together in this movie. Unfortunately, I was sadly disappointed. After seeing this movie, I'm actually surprised that with their talent, they even agreed to do the movie. The storyline was a little immature as were the characters in the movie. I kept watching, hoping that it would improve, but, that didn't happen. I watched until the very end and then I deleted the movie from my saved list, it definitely wasn't worth watching again. I hope Hallmark realizes that they have some very talented actors and starts giving them parts more suited to their abilities.

I'm sorry, but this felt as if it had been written by a group 16 year olds who couldn't agree on which direction the plot should take. Normally I'd rate anything with Tyler Hynes in it a 9 or 10, but this just was not a fitting vehicle for his talent. His part could have been played by anyone. What a waste of talent. The movie itself was slow, rambling and muddled and not worth the watch for me - though I did watch till the end hoping there'd be some redeeming quality, some epiphany or...something. The characters were lukewarm at best and unlikeable at the worst - not enough interest in any of them to care what happened. Guess I expect Hallmark to raise the bar for Christmas but not this time.

Best friends and successful business partners, Liz (Pascal Lamothe-Kipnes) and Naomi (Janel Parrish), return to their hometown for the holidays, where they run into former high school crush, Chris (Tyler Hynes). Back in the day, they were not on his radar, but now they actually get to know him, and they find him charming. He initiates spending more time together, which fans the flames of ardor, possibly leading to conflict between the two best friends.

While the women deal with old feelings from high school and feel friction from their mothers, they reassess their own relationship.

The strong point of this film is the believable relationship between its two female stars. This is a buddy film of sorts, so thankfully their chemistry is strong. In addition, both of them are excellent actresses with the ability to handle both comedy and drama.

Tyler Hynes is a Hallmark stalwart. Here he gives his usually-dependable performance, though the film focuses more on the females.

Naomi and Liz have been friends forever, they studied together, live together, work together. They do everything together. They are going home for the holidays where they encounter old high school classmates and among them is Chris, their old crush.

This movie barely had any romance in it. You go into it thinking that this is a love triangle, and he has to decide at the end. And it is, for about 4 scenes but a choice is quickly made. However, this situation carries our leads into uncomfortable moments, making them re think about past choices.

I personally didn't like it that much. I know these situations happen but it wasn't what I was expecting. I want to watch people fall in love, not two friends fighting and questioning the other. There clearly are a lot of unresolved issues.

This also had people who peaked in high school and kind of lived in the past and those are the worst kind of people.

Tyler's character could have easily been removed from this script (and I'm not even going to talk about the fish thing). Is this the only Christmas movie he will be in this year?

I know I push for more diverse plots but this is not what I was talking about. There were a lot of wrong things with the characters AND the plot.

You know what would have make more sense at this point? The girls ending up with each other.

This movie was a big disappointment for Tyler Hynes fans. He did his best as usual but the storyline stunk! I'm not a fan of the actress that played Naomi anyhow. I watch everything with Tyler Hynes in it so they had me watching it regardless. I just think his talents were wasted on this piece of fluff that was more a teeny plot than an adult thing. Tyler Hynes is Tyler Hynes so you had me regardless of how bad it was. The two girls act like they are still in high school and Tyler's character was the exact opposite of his high school character. Who came up with this fluff?

I just hope his next project will showcase his talents better and have a little more umph to the plot! Love you, Tyler!