Christmas Land (2015)

Pretty Good

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

I wish I liked this movie because I really Luke MacFarlane but this story line was a bit ridiculous. The new owner of Christmas Land is supposed to be an educated business woman but she believes everything her boyfriend tells her then signs a contract that she didn't read and asked the new owner to pretty please not make any changes. What? Then the town has to come together to bail her out of a mess that she caused and after she lied to them. The ending what awful as the bad guy was the winner and the town lost their life savings. Not watchable.

Although this Hallmark plot is similar to others in the Hallmark Christmas collection, the well cast actors in this appealing story and the uniquely picturesque setting contribute to the special charm of this film. The opening scene with Nikki as a young child making Christmas ornaments with her grandmother, then the grandmother filming a video of she and her beloved granddaughter on the sleigh adds unity to the plot and theme. Long after the grandmother's passing, the video she made is part of the motivation for luring Nikki back to live at Christmas Land. The conflict is strong throughout complete with a Scrooge like real estate agent who conspires with Nikki's heartless, big city boyfriend to steal the farm from her. The negative reviews of this lovely film on this site baffle me because the reviews seem to be critiquing a plot device that merely reveals the reality of the real estate business today. It's as if some Hallmark viewers cannot accept any realism in a Hallmark movie. In the final scenes of the film, the forgiving attitude of Nikki and the townspeople toward the ruthless estate agent seem to anger many viewers. Yet, it is not out of character for the generous, yuletide-spirited townspeople and the transformed Nikki who is re-energized by Christmas cheer to forgive the greedy real estate villain as they celebrate saving Christmas Land. The ending of Christmas Land offers the happy-ever-after idealism of all Hallmark films complete with the loving couple kissing in the final scene but it also adds a dose of realism that contributes to a larger message. If you have a chance to see this captivating movie, you should do so.

The ending of Christmasland is extremely offensive to women and make women out to be stupid and unaware of their legal rights. The female lead is supposed to be a savvy person living and surviving in a big city not some backwoods hillbilly. The ending of this movie leaves her in debt by $1.3 million dollars on property she owned free and clear one week before. Idiotic! If I were in her shoes, I would have brought a friend with me to confront that attorney boyfriend about his collusion with that real estate developer so I would have had a witness. Then I would have hired a great real estate attorney and sued them both then reported the ex-boyfriend/attorney to the State Bar. I love the Hallmark Christmas movies but this one was pathetic!

Because Tucker's "nice-play-to-visit-but-don't-wanna-live-there" attitude _most definitely_ makes him anti-big city/pro-small town. Which, in turn, is not an entirely good thing. As it's basically just a latter-day version of the exact same isolationism that was so unfortunately predominant throughout the United States during the Great Depression. Thereby making Tucker's naivete as proportionately unhealthy as Jules' initial, materialistic skepticism."Central Park is nature, now?" For youngsters born and raised in NYC who can't afford to get bused off to some rural nature preserve for just one day: frig, yeah! It's as close to nature as they're ever going to get. Especially, if those same kids don't come from the fortunate few families who have _successfully_ raised fruits and vegetables in urban community gardens no bigger than one square acre! And for those latter acts of "going green," such city-slickers should be praised. Not begrudged!I, myself, come from a not-so-small town in Northwest Connecticut. Population: over forty thousand! Yet, while that admittedly disqualifies us from ever being a tri-state metropolis like the Big Apple, neither are we (in the immortal words of FOOTLOOSE's Christopher Penn) "stuck in Leave-It-To-Beaverland." In short; you don't have to spend your _whole life_ in an actual small town to have small town values.A legitimate point more successfully demonstrated by the 2005 Hallmark Xmas movie, SILVER BELLS.