I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did, it had the usual characters, but it was a watchable, feel good movie.
Mistletoe & Menorahs
2019
Action / Comedy / Drama / Romance
Plot summary
It's the December holiday season, Christy Dickinson's favorite time of the year, which doesn't exactly mesh with her stock broker boyfriend Peter Carlson, who doesn't understand the joys of Christmas. She knows what she wants in life down to the very exacting order she places at her regular coffee house. One bigger item in what she wants is a move from the sales department to design at Solomon Wind Toy Company (SWT) where she loves working in that connection of the joy toys bring to children at Christmas. The scuttlebutt from Samantha Ames, her best friend and the president's executive assistant, is that the opening in design is hers if her sales pitch to Toys for All's CEO David Berger is successful. While the sales side of the pitch seems to impress David, she will have to impress a second time when David invites her to his holiday party in just over a week on December 24th, when he expects to see a design concept and the party where she agreed to lead many of the holiday traditions, which she is more than happy to do in loving all things Christmas. Beyond needing to come up with a design concept in a week - she originally expecting to have until the new year - she discovers two things about the party after the meeting with David that damper her enthusiasm: that David has also invited the competition, Toys and Tricks, who supposedly will also be making their design pitch; and that the party is not to celebrate Christmas but rather Hanukkah, the Jewish traditions about which she knows nothing. In Christy being determined to learn all things Hanukkah by the time of the party, Samantha arranges for her preteen son Alex's Jewish school teacher, Jonathan Silver, to be Christy's teacher in the subject. Despite Christy and Jonathan's initial meeting not going well, they decide to bury the hatchet in each needing the other, Christy who will in turn teach Jonathan all about Christmas to impress his girlfriend Heather's parents who he will meet for the first time on Christmas Eve, his relationship with Heather on the line in needing to get her parents' approval. In Christy and Jonathan spending time together, Christy discovers that Jonathan is as passionate both about his holiday traditions and life as she, but arguably more important that both have not been able to see the forest for the trees in something not quite right about their individual current paths.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
Director
Top cast
Jake Epstein as Jonathan Silver
Cory Lee as Samanthan Ames
Jon McLaren as Peter
Kathryn Kohut as Heather
Tech specs
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU 782.61 MB
1280*714
English 2.0
NR
Movie Reviews
Reviewed by
Enjoyable chemistry.
Reviewed by
Kelley Jakle is the Queen of Christmas and Hanukkah
Mistletoe & Menorahs is pretty much your standard Christmas movie with all the tropes and Clichés you'd come to expect from this type of movie. The only real difference is that the man is Jewish. The film follows Christy Dickinson, who, as her name suggests, is a Christmas Fanatic. However, when she discovers her boss is Jewish, Christ seeks out helps from Jonathan Silver to learn about Hanukkah. In return, she agrees to help him turn his house into a Christmas Wonderland to impress his girlfriend's father. While they both are dating other people, it's pretty clear that they are going to get together from the start. Even though it's pretty predictable, it's a cute film about people from two different religions coming together and learning about one another's culture. Also, as someone who isn't Jewish, I enjoyed learning about the history behind the Hanukkah traditions. Kelley Jakle once again proves that she is the queen of movies. She is way too cute and defiantly makes this film worth watching. Overall, it's a cute, feel-good Christmas movie that does everything it needs to. So if cheesy Christmas movies are your thing, give this one a watch.
Reviewed by
Sweet merriment
My Lifetime Christmas film viewings over-time have been a very mixed bag. With some surprisingly good hits, where regardless of how predictable they are succeed in being full of charm, warmth and heart so succeeding in being light-hearted and undemanding fun. But also some quite big misses, where the characters are not likeable, everything is forced and shallow with implausibility too in some of the worst cases, the acting and writing being weak and basically with just nothing to them.
'A Merry Holiday' (another title is also listed but this one is much better) is a strong example of the former and left me very surprised, as something who was in all honesty not expecting to like it that much as the concept on paper didn't wow me. As far as the Lifetime films go, 'A Merry Christmas' definitely struck me as one of the best and certainly one of their best from their 2019 output. Am judging it by the way on how it fares on its own terms instead of comparing it to anything or implying that it is on par, worse than or better than anything better known and better regarded.
Production values are slick and never drab or garish, while the story is poignant and brought a lot of warmth to my heart. Enough of the music is also very pleasant and fits quite well, the songs don't feel too many and don't intrude. What's more, they made me smile, they had some emotion at least and a couple stuck in my mind for a while after.
There are a fair share of amusing moments that never felt overdone and an equal amount of never too over-sentimental serious ones. The writing is a long way from perfect, but for Lifetime it's acceptable. Enough of the story is very charming and heart-warming and even if the characters are not meaty they were characters to me that were worth caring for. Kelly Jackle is immensely appealing and she is matched by Jake Epstein, their chemistry is never awkward and is quite adorable. The supporting cast do well.
It is not a perfect or great film though. There is no doubt, with it being the case with all Lifetime Christmas films and being a long way from being a novel premise, that the story is very predictable and quite safe throughout, so there are major plot points and developments that can be seen from a long way away.
Did think that the writing did lack subtlety and some parts did make the toes curl a bit. A little more could have been done with the Hanukkah theme, which could have been delved into more and handled in a more balanced way.
Concluding, not great but a pleasant surprise actually. 7/10