Coming Home for Christmas (2014)

I'll tell you why so serious

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Excellent for this genre!It is so nice to see a movie that has very little sensationalism. They have their struggles and deal with them. I did not feel my stomach going into knots or my adrenaline spiking! Thank you! It was sweet and touched me and I cried a little. I also guessed the girls had to be rl sisters, and they are.I'll probably watch this one every year. I think it is good and a warm Christmas story even though Christmas is not really the Focus of the movie, but more the context.I hope everyone enjoys it. The house is gorgeous and reminds me of my family home. I don't want movies pushing my buttons. I am happy to just sit back and relax and enjoy a good story.Merry Christmas!

It's five years since Kate (Carly McKillip) walked out of her younger sister Melanie (Britt McKillip)'s wedding. She saw the groom flirting and tried to stop the wedding. Their parents (Amy Jo Johnson, George Canyon) are struggling financially and splitting up. They lost their family home which is bought by Mike (Ben Hollingsworth). Everybody is estranged and bitter. Melanie is hiding the fact that she's living alone in an empty house. Kate tries to reunite the family at the old house for Christmas.This is a lower grade Christmas TV movie. There seems to be more of them every year. The bigger problem is that there is nothing here but an idea for a movie. The setup is somewhat interesting. The story isn't interesting enough. The actors try valiantly but there isn't anything more that they can do. This movie needs to start with a better script. Also the romance needs better chemistry and a better male lead for it to work. The sisters have a few good scenes but that's about it. They also sing which is their gig now.

Bad acting...poor story line.Characters are not believable. Don't waste your time, there are too many other good Christmas movies out there to watch and brighten your holiday season. Sorry, but the bad acting and poor casting of characters was too distracting. Definitely a B movie with B actors. I tried to like the movie, but just couldn't. Love the premise, but it just didn't deliver. Maybe, if it is a book, it would be much better. Maybe, the characters would be more developed and of course, the bad acting would not distract from the story. What else can I say? I don't recommend this movie.

I wanted to like this movie, and I did like the heroine, played by Canadian vocalist and child actress Carly McKillip. She and her real-life sister, Britt McKillip (think "My Little Pony") play sisters who get back in touch after a long estrangement, spurred by their parents' separation.In theory this is a moving tale of family reconciliation. In practice, it tried to do too much with too little, at least on the head of the lead character. Carly gave it a valiant effort, but there was very little story in her character; even for a more experienced actress to work with. This is an okay-enough, even dull, girl's attempt at bringing her family together, without much in the way of struggle or more effort than talking to a stranger (eye-candy Ben Hollingsworth) who is only too happy to make her acquaintance and agree to everything she asks.It's a bad sign when the subsidiary characters are given deep, meaningful problems that cry out to be tackled head-on and overcome, and then those problems are simply ignored for the rest of the movie in favour of our dull girl's dull journey toward a foregone conclusion.All that negativity aside, the romance was sweet and developed gradually. The movie sets have pretty holiday decorations that mostly look normal family scale. And there's some singing, though not of well-known carols for a change. The backdrop, of BC mountains masquerading as Oregonian ones, is lovely to look at although the weather is suspiciously low-snow for a mountain town coming up on Christmas.If you are playing board games or wrapping presents and want some background holiday themed TV, this is fine. But even a holiday movie fanatic like me wouldn't seek it out again on purpose.