Am not somebody who hates Christmas or has a bias against made for television Christmas films. The complete opposite on both counts. Christmas is actually my favourite time of year and always has been for as long as can be remembered. Also love musicals, or at least films music-oriented, and Dolly Parton is always a treat to listen to (deserving of her reputation as a country music legend) and watch. The premise sounded nice enough, though there was the worry of it being cheesy.
'Christmas on the Square' was badly misconceived unfortunately from start to finish in my view. Any potential it had is completely wasted and there are far better representations of Parton, who deserved much better than this, on film and anywhere. Have seen worse Christmas films and overall than 'Christmas on the Square' and it has a couple of small good things, but nearly everything fails badly and am saying this with much regret. Speaking as someone who doesn't like being critical.
The best thing about 'Christmas on the Square' is the spirited performance of Christine Baranski.
It started quite nicely and the closest the film got to evoking seeing Parton in concert.
Sadly cannot say anything good about everything else. On the whole, the acting is too campy and it was like a vast majority of the cast were over-compensating. A case of a cast with solid singing ability but don't have the goods dramatically. Even Parton doesn't charm as much as she usually does, although she does look and sound amazing. Being a musician, music is very important for me to talk about and that is lacking here. Ranging from very forgettable to borderline embarrassing with very cheesy and soppy lyrics.
Will agree with those that didn't care for the choreography or dancing, to me it was too manic and overdone. In fact, pretty much everything about 'Christmas on the Square' is manic and has no subtlety whatsoever. The dialogue is very awkward and cheesy, while almost none of the characters are interesting in personality and actually irritate (excepting Baranski's and that is more to do with her performance). The story is paper thin and suffers from excessive predictability, a hectic to the point of chaos pace and overuse of cheese and froth.
Overall, misconceived and charmless. 2/10.
