User reviews

I must confess that over the years my wife and I have watched more Hallmark movies than we can count. Most of them are Christmas movies followed by mystery movies. The storyline of this one is a bit different and overall, pretty good. The cast isn't picked from the same pool of actors as they usually are. That said the male lead actor sounded like Spock - his voice was very monotone, and he had very little facial expression. The Santa had a few too many "Ho Ho Ho's". And of course it wouldn't be a Hallmark movie without the typical, ridiculous "deal breaker" which usually happens about 15 minutes before the ending.

I watched this for Holland Roden, who was so good in Time to Come Home a couple years back. She has an endearing quality about her.

Here she plays Audrey, an artist of some note who returns home after her grandmother passes, only to be sent on a quest to return 5 rings her grandmother found beachcombing.

To assist her in her task she enlists the aid of Finn, a private investigator, played by Nolan Gerard Funk.

I was about 30 minutes in when it occurred to me Funk reminded me of a smart-ass, murderous kid in one of the first episodes of Castle. Checked his bio and sure enough, it was him.

He has a lot of credits for a guy who acts like Spock.

One thing that stood out to me in this movie was the almost complete lack of familiar faces among the supporting cast. I guess there's been an exodus to another channel.

Along the way snowmen are built, office supplies are turned into Christmas decorations and art is created. People are appropriately thankful when their baubles are returned.

Nothing out of the ordinary for a Hallmark movie, but still pretty forgettable.

Five.

I have enjoyed Holland Roden since her time on the Teen Wolf series. She plays the painter Audrey Moss, who after the loss of her grandmother returns home to help her mom potentially sell her grandmother's antique shop. While at the shop, Audrey discovers a quest her grandmother left for her to find the owners of five gold rings before Christmas...which is just nine days away. To help her locate the owners of the lost rings, Audrey enlists the private detective Finn O'Sullivan (Nolan Gerard Funk).

Finn and Audrey have a past, but their future seems to be one of potential as the two get along well together.

Christmas lasagne?

I enjoyed the artwork and the quests to find the owners of the rings, I did think that they could have added a little bit more romance to the romantic storyline. Overall a great holiday addition to Hallmark's Christmas vault without being too Christmas-y.

Could have been enjoyable if the man actor showed...ANY emotion. Anything at all. Zero expression on his face. Zero emotion in his voice ever. I started screaming "smile or something" at the screen. Ruined it all for me. And I LOVE Holland Roden. She made it watchable. But he kept it from being fun.

Aside from that it was a neat little idea and the supporting actors were serviceable. All the usual background music and predictable plot of a Hallmark film which is why we even watch these things at all.

I am dying to know if anyone else notices just how bad this actor really is. It's so distracting for me.

6.3 stars.

I think the leads are good actors, however they don't gel. She is standoffish and he's like a lovesick puppy throughout the narrative. But she doesn't seem to notice that he's really in love with her, and we see that he has been his whole life. This lack of empathy and wherewithal on her part exposes flaws that are unbecoming of a lead character.

So as the story goes, she comes home for the holidays and is sent on a treasure hunt by her grandmother, who recently passed away. Her mother owns a retail antique store of sorts. She wants her daughter to take over the store, but she is too career oriented as an aspiring painter to take over the family business.

The male lead is an old friend of hers, seems they dated a while way back in their youth. He is now running his family's private investigator firm.

The two of them are sent on this treasure hunt. He uses his connections and she her knowledge of antiques to find the owners of five gold rings.

It would have been really good, but something was missing. I think the treasure hunt was almost pointless and there are too many coincidences. These two factors cause an imbalance that is difficult to maintain. It sort of fell flat for me. I needed a more quality romance to make up the difference, but it was absent.

The storyline involves yet another quest that has to be solved. An artist, Aubrey Moss, (Holland Roden)comes home for Christmas and her mother tells her that her deceased grandmother's will left Aubrey five gold rings and five mysteries that must be solved before Christmas morning. The grandmother also left instructions for Aubrey to team up with Private Investigator, Finn O'Sullivan (Nolan Gerard Funk). I like that the plot is a little bit different, but like most Hallmark movies still predictable. The movie does sort of drag in the middle, but the stories surrounding each ring are interesting. I like Holland Roden and hope she appears in more Hallmark movies. She brings an upbeat and inquisitive nature to her character. Some reviewers have complained about Noland Funk's Spock like personality, but I find him to be in the Ryan Paevey acting style, more of the unemotional types, which did fit his Private Investigator character. The two leads did have good chemistry together. Overall, its not a ground breaking movie, but it's a pleasant diversion that's watchable.

I tried to like this movie. I really did. I'm a fan of Holland Roden, but the guy they got for her love interest was awful. His tone was monotonous, he had basically NO facial expressions and his eyes looked dead. It was like he was reading his lines behind his eyes. It was hard to like him and because I couldn't like him, I wasn't interested in the story. He made it boring. Every other actor had personality, but his was like rice cake. Some parts of the directing was kinda dumb, for instance, the desk scene. The close-ups there were totally unnecessary. Sorry Hallmark, but you dropped the ball on this one. You might want to send Nolan Funk for some acting lessons. I don't think he would've survived "Finding Mr. Christmas".

I really enjoyed this movie. I watched this with my bestie and my bestie loved loved loved the male lead. I have really enjoyed Holland Roden and enjoyed her here also. I really enjoyed both leads and felt they had an easy comfortable believable chemistry. They were two people who had known each other for about 20 years, had thought of each other as potential romantic partners, but had never done anything about it for various reasons. Until now. That kind of chemistry is way different from some sudden meet-cute. The stories of trying to locate the owners of the rings and the resolutions were sweet and touching. This was a real winner for me!

Cute movie topic, but it was like sitting through two hours of fingers screaching down a chalk board. Actor playing Audrey ruined the movie with her annoying vocal fry through the film. The low pitch screeching voice was so distracting. There is no reason to deliver their dialogue with vocal fry. Sometimes, couldn't even understand what she was saying, because her voice was so strained. Why do they do this?! It's not entertaining, it's annoying, and just makes you not want to watch anything they are in. The director should notice this during filming and announce, "o.k., enough of the vocal fry, just talk in a normal voice!"

A lot of Christmas stories revolve around a quest for the lead couple. And this one, like so many, is a quest to find people to return sentimental items to. Actually, the quest is more often about one item. I think having 5 different items for 5 people spreads the joy for the viewer because returning each item brings a sentimental moment.

I loved Holland Roden in her episode of the It's Time for ____ to Come Home series. (Him I think.) She does an equally good job here and she actually generates some chemistry with Nolan Gerard Funk. He really is way too stiff. I liked one reviewer's comment comparing him to Spock. Aside from his stiffness, most of the acting is good.

There are a couple of small twists. The one which creates the conflict probably was anticipated by some viewers but not me. I thought the conflict was blown up too much by Audrey. The explanation offered by her mother should have been obvious.

This is one of the occasional "hunt' movies they do for these Christmas movies. A recently deceased grandmother had a habit of finding and returning lost personal treasures before Christmas each year, and leaves five ring shaped keepsakes for her granddaughter to continue the tradition.

The stories of finding the owners and returning the rings are NOT compelling. None have any tension or real mystery involved, and are rather boring.

Holland Roden's voice is annoyingly scratchy for most of her lines, which I typically assign to nervous delivery. They should have been dubbed over in post, because she sounds terrible.

Nolan Funk is okay, but does nothing to liven up his role. His expression and delivery is continaully bland.

The romance seems to have been limited to one slip where he caught her on a sidewalk.

There is overacting for some of the secondary roles. The rival antiques dealer is supposed to be annoying, but her scenery chewing for her couple of scenes makes it moreso.

Then there was the grandmother, in two scenes at the beginning of the movie. She was so over the top sickly sweet annoying I told my wife I hoped this was one of the stories where they skip ahead and the little girl at the beginning has grown up.

Indeed that's where the story went, and I REALLY hoped the grandmother was dead. This is the first time in more than a decade of watching Hallmark Christmas films I found myself glad that a character died. Glad, relieved, and joyful.

Finally, the "relationship crisis" at the end was possibly the most stupid I've ever seen in one of these movies. Utterly unbelievable the woman would have acted that way.

Like I said, it's no tragedy if you completely skip this one.

Audrey Miller (Holland Roden) is an aspiring artist in Manhattan. She and her mother inherit her grandmother's shop. Her mother would like to keep it, but that would require Audrey to come back to help run the shop. They find a letter from her beachcomber grandmother who liked to return the items she found on the beach. As a final request, she would like Audrey to return five separately uncovered gold rings to their rightful owners before Christmas which is nine days away. She gets help from childhood friend Finn O'Sullivan (Nolan Gerard Funk) who is now a private investigator.

I love the opening premise. I have never imagined this concept. I would still use a few minor changes to make this less clunky. It sets up a quest and a ticking clock. It should be an exciting mystery solving search, but these two are so slow. They even spend time to build a snowman. Their leisurely pace doesn't indicate a sense of urgency. That defeats the purpose of the clock. They need to up the tension and the chemistry will come as a result. The movie flatlines and everything falls flat. I guess Hallmark could never do any intensity.

Everybody appeared to be going through the motions, but it just didn't come together for me. The two stars appeared to be "B" grade actors, not particularly bad, just boring. Additionally, the female lead sort of mumbled through her lines. I also thought the lightening was underwhelming. Maybe the behind the scene people were budget based, but something was missing...any Christmas magic.

It could have been that the story about searching for the various owners of five (5) gold rings (various pieces of jewelry that were round) just wasn't enough to carry the movie. Regardless, the actors didn't pull it off. And, of course the Hallmark worn out fake anger scene was terribly overplayed and a tiring ploy. In all, a rating of "4" was generous.