Over the past two years or so, my Christmas film completest quest (made up for primarily those from Hallmark and Lifetime) has been very interesting but also hit and miss. Some were very charming, easy to digest and lovely watches with good casts, providing that one doesn't expect too much. Others were very dull, cheesy, too sentimental and badly written and acted with excessively predictable and thin stories (due to doing nothing new with familiar formulas).
Unfortunately, 'A Perfect Christmas List' is one of the films in the latter category. Have actually seen worse Christmas films overall, but what could have been a decent warm-hearted film turned out to be anything but with nearly everything falling as flat as one can get. 'A Perfect Christmas List' is not a complete and utter disaster as there is one performance that stops it from being so, and lifts it to a very weak film with many terribly executed elements.
That good performance comes from a charming and perky Marion Ross.
Also thought that the production values were quite nice, especially the scenery.
Everything else fails. The rest of the acting is a mix of looking ill at ease to shameless overacting. Despite his part not being massive, Richard Karn does grate from trying far harder than he needed to and it does stick out. Didn't find myself caring for most of the flimsily fleshed out to the point of dullness and stale stereotypical characters, with only Ross' having much spark or rootability. The romantic chemistry is practically non-existent and the romance itself in writing is completely charmless and strained, not to mention very underwritten.
Furthermore, the music is too loud and too much of one mood. The dialogue continually sounds awkward, and is very cheesy and over-sentimental too. The pacing is sluggish (direction likewise), especially in the over-stretched middle act. The story is very thin and predictable, the final third is of the kind that has a contrived dramatic situation and ends on a very pat note. The lack of warmth and charm is noticeable and the Christmas spirit didn't seem there either, it all felt bland. Do agree that the theft scene was very out of place and brought a temporarily mean spirited edge to the story.
In conclusion, weak. 3/10.
