A crafty Christmas Romance had a nice mystery regarding the owner of the coin. However, the romance was weak, as the main couple had zero chemistry.

Quite the opposite. 'A mediocre at best Christmas Romance' is a more appropriate title, but that is not corny enough for Lifetime. The 2020 Lifetime Christmas efforts did vary and often veered between mediocre and slightly above average and were indicative at times of rushed productions. But there were enough of them that were still watchable and more (was pleasantly surprised by some) and were not amateur efforts. Actually think on reflection that the standard was of better quality than 2019's batch.

'A Crafty Christmas Romance' though is one of the misfires and one of the worst 2020 Lifetime films. There were a few good things, not massive though, that are sadly outweighed by the flaws, with the worst flaws being absolutely terrible. Is it among the worst that they ever did? Not quite, but it is one of the closest the 2020 output got to being on the same level as the worst of Lifetime's 2019 Christmas output, which is really not a good sign.

Shall start with the good. The production values are quite decent, don't look rushed or look like no effort had been put into them. Actually saw some professionalism that was not present elsewhere. The music was also quite pleasant in a nostalgic way.

Did feel too that some of the dialogue was cute.

That is sadly pretty much it with the good. The acting ranges from bad to awful all round. Nobody looks at ease and clearly look embarrassed or confused by what they were given, not a surprise. That is particularly apparent in the wooden lead performances. The chemistry just isn't there, completely disconnected and development-wise it goes nowhere for most of the time until rushing it through in the contrived and too pat final quarter. Didn't care for any of the characters, which had no personality or/and annoyed.

Excepting moments of cuteness in the dialogue, the script a vast majority of the time is truly awkward and very stilted in a verbose way. Almost like a hastily written first draft not checked through. The story never grabbed me with a very dull first half, which felt slow, over-stretched and uneventful. When it picks up marginally too late, it's very contrived and the whole film has no warmth or charm, no nothing. The direction is routine at best and is often disorganised and hesitant.

Bottom line, not good at all. 3/10.

I take on board everything reviewers have said so far about this film - & they're pretty correct. It's a bit amateurish, the leads don't have that spark together , the dialogue's pretty wooden & the age difference between the 2 leads doesn't feel right. However, for me, the naïve storytelling & enthusiastic acting , coupled with Brad's nice-guy -always-cheerful approach didn't make the film bomb. Overall it's a so-so rating for a so-so film and a win for the nice good guys out there !