Yes, you guessed it, of course I had never heard about the 2023 movie "Designing Christmas With You" (aka "Mistletoe Moments") prior to sitting down to watch it here in 2024. I happened to have the chance to add it to my 2024 Christmas movie marathon, and since it was a movie that I was unfamiliar with, of course I did so.
Were I harboring grand expectations to Jo-Anne Brechin's 2023 movie? No, not really, as the movie's cover seemed rather generic and sappy. But then again, doesn't the vast majority of these movies essentially have the same cover of a woman and a man looking all cozy and Christmassy? And this movie was no different.
The storyline in the movie is generic, so very, very generic. Our leading actress stumbles into a stranger and it is an instant attraction, and she has to work on a huge Christmas event, but lo and behold the guy opposing her plans happens to be the leading actor, the stranger she bumped into in the beginning of the movie. Will they work out their differences and make Christmas a reality? And will they fall in love along the way? I think we all know the answers and the exact outcome of the story. So writer Ansley Gordon played it safe and put all bets on all the archetypical sappy Christmas movie tropes in history.
But of course, this means that the diehard fans of sappy Christmas movies will enjoy the movie a lot more than us casual viewers will. No doubt about that.
I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie, and that is actually something I do enjoy when I sit down to watch a movie. The acting performances in the movie were fair.
Hardly a movie that I will ever return to watch a second time, but it was entertaining enough for what it was.
My rating of director Jo-Anne Brechin's 2023 movie "Designing Christmas With You" lands on a five out of ten stars.
