6/10 - surprisingly good Christmas TV movie hits all the right notes
Christmas Under the Stars
2019
Drama / Romance
Christmas Under the Stars
2019
Drama / Romance
Plot summary
In the lead-up to Christmas, Chicago investment banker Nick Bellwith is fired for an investment decision he made for his biggest client, which negated all the money he made for them and his company in the past, and he was let go instead of being promoted to junior partner as he was expecting. He's hesitant to tell his world-traveling father Sydney, who seems to value financial success more than anything. Seeing Nick walk by looking crushed, aging Clem Marshwell, owner of the Star Top Christmas-tree lot, offers him a temporary minimum-wage job assisting with the heavy lifting at the lot. Despite not being a Christmas person since his mother's death when he was a child, Nick accepts without telling Clem anything about his situation. For many of the regulars who have bought their trees at the lot over its 30 years, it's an especially painful year. Clem himself recently lost his wife Grace, and this year might also be his last as the lot property is being redeveloped. And Julie Gibbons, 7th-grade science teacher and single adoptive mom to Matt, lost her father this year (her parents fell in love-at-first-sight at the lot). Clem has become good friends with Julie and Matt. Despite believing the bills covered by insurance, Julie is financially strapped in dealing with her father's medical payments, so she's not sure she can afford Christmas for Matt this year. Spending time with this collective might give Nick a clearer picture of what he wants to do with his life as he starts to fall for Julie, but their road to a happy ending might hit a sharp bump: Nick has a connection to Julie's financial problems.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
Director
Top cast
Autumn Reeser as Julie Gibbons
Jesse Metcalfe as Nick Bellwith
Jordan Claire Robbins as Chelsea
Samantha Ferris as Ellen Wardstone
Tech specs
720p.WEB 1080p.WEB 797.9 MB
1280*714
English 2.0
NR
Movie Reviews
Reviewed by
Christmas Under the Stars
Reviewed by
One of the Best of 2019 Countdown to Christmas
In an avalanche of Christmas films in 2019, it's a shame that a film like "Christmas Under the Stars" will get buried under many other formulaic bores. Here's a film with real people struggling with issues many of us can relate to wrapped up in the guise of a Holiday Hallmark movie. The tropes are here but unlike many of these films there's a backbone reminiscent of It's a Wonderful Life.
A single mother, Julie, played by Autumn Reeser is struggling to comfort her son due to her father's death and deal with his remaining medical debt. Reeser is an effective actress at portraying an everyman you could believe lives in your town. She finds out from her beau, Nick (Jesse Metcalfe),that the medical debt was sold to a new debt collector. Nick, the film's Hot Guy has recently been fired from his financial advising firm. He aimlessly walks through the street one day when a kindly old man by the name of Clem (Clarke Peters) offers him a job.
Peters is excellent as the old man. He is beaten down by the reality that his wife is dead, and he has no reason to hope for anything good will happen. He initially seems like the pillar of strength and slowly falls apart. Nick, on the other hand, gets stronger as they work together. Julie has a lot to do with that. The film establishes that Nick's businessman father wasn't a good communicator. The two of them fall in love, perhaps because they each admire the perseverance of the other person.
The film is a refreshing portrayal of the value of having a community of people who care about you in your life. It does this subtly by showing positive changes in all of the characters when other people take an interest in them. This even extends to a subplot with one of the students in Julie's science class.
Many of these made-for-tv films regardless of the channel are really fantasy films where no one has any real world problems. I believe this is a result of the commercialization of Christmas. It's easier to sell fantasy. This film is grounded in reality and refreshing in context of the genre as it now is. It's the best kind of Christmas film. The only misfortune is the forced abrupt ending neatly tying up plot threads.
Reviewed by
Clarke Peters was great
One of the better Hallmark premieres this year so far. I don't know why other reviewers aren't mentioning Clarke Peters, but he killed it as usual. People pointing out inaccuracies with finance in this movie like there aren't countless inaccuracies in every single Hallmark Christmas movie. A top 3 for Hallmark Xmas in 2019 I am sure of it.