I really liked this one! I loved that it revolved around a hometown mystery and a 1950/s musical complete Let's with a dance routine at the end. As a fan of old musicals especially "singin in the rain" I loved the homages. As lifetime/hallmark Christmas movies go this was one of my faves so far this year.

The movie starts typically - Journalist Alli is stuck in covering entertainment news but pushes her boss for her Big Break into real news. Her boss - doing a great Perry White imitation - agrees to consider the move if she covers the 65th Anniversary of the movie classic, "Christmas is You," in the small town where the movie was originally filmed. Alli is cynical of Christmas and the false magic of movies until she is caught up in the mystery of the movie's famous song. Did the former leading man write the song for the soul mate he met while filming the classic? Is his broken heart the reason for his reclusive lifestyle? Who is the real woman behind the song? The ending of this movie was quite a surprise - a happy and pleasant surprise - with memories of Astaire, Rogers, Kelly & Charisse. I especially enjoyed the editing of the "movie" scenes with current day scenes. Nicely done.

I'm honestly torn writing this review. I loved the story. In fact, I loved everything about this movie except for two things - the two main actors. When that happens, there is no magic. Truth be told, Robin Dunne and Kaylee Harwood should have played Brad and Alli.

Holly Deveaux (Alli) was... odd to watch. Very wooden. She tried too hard to act instead of being in the moment. It really took me out of the moment. Drew Seeley (Brad) was okay but his character was way too "Aw shucks!" in a demasculated, "non-toxic male" way. That kind of character naturally results in weird over-acting to get that across.

Although the mystery of who D was was VERY obvious and predictable, it's still worth a one time watch if you need a Christmas movie fix. It's rare to find a movie anymore that's not blatant in its political correctness or political agenda. I boycotted Hallmark completely when they very suddenly went off the deep end caving in to cancel culture by obviously going out of their way to add political correctness (not to mention product placement) to their movies. Since this seems to be the trend now, my desire for watching anything produced by Hollywood has disappeared.