adoptshelterpetstoday With the exciting title and the interesting previews, once again my imagination was expecting a really good Hallmark Christmas movie...but once again, I was very, very disappointed. I did not find anything likable about this movie...............Plot as I saw it: "Mia" believed that she was privy to suddenly becoming the manager of the failing business where she worked...but she quickly became disgruntled learning that the owner's competent son was going to manage it instead......."Mia" eventually became familiar with the son and changed her unfavorable attitude towards him. Why?.......... Because she saw personal, selfish gain in having a "relationship" with him.....From then on, she gave nothing more than a profound impression that she only wanted a "relationship" with the guy primarily for him to be a "big brother" and then probably be a father for her son......After all, her employment family health benefits might be discontinued!....With her repeated pouting, she practically demanded him to invest all of his free time in her son.........Every time she thought he was interested in another woman (an old friend) because he spent some time with her,..."Mia" instantly showed her disgruntled jealousy and possessiveness....as if he was not allowed to his life's choice.

gordonm888 Here's the good news: the acting by the two romantic leads (Haylie Duff and Antonio Cupo) is good and they are assisted by a strong acting performance by veteran actor Jay Brazeau in the role of the business owner and father of the male lead. This movie would have been a total train-wreck without these actors.Now the bad news: Hats Off to Christmas suffers from terrible writing. It goes beyond scenes that are so poorly written that they damage the 'suspension of disbelief;' the film relies on cheap and cheesy plot devices that are unrealistic but intended to manipulate the emotions of the viewer. Many Hallmark romance movies are guilty of this, but Hats Off is the Al Capone of "cheap and cheesy." This Hallmark movie has it all, doled out in the most unrealistic and clumsy scenes imaginable:a backstory involving a dead husband (and father)a young son who is wheelchair-bound. Doctors think he is medically capable of walking, but emotional issues from the trauma of his car accident are suspected to be the real issue preventing him from walking again. Anyone want to guess where this plot-line is going?a female lead character, Mia, who overhears a fragment of a conversation about plans to address her employer's business problems and misunderstands what she has heard. Mia doesn't seek to confirm anything or wait for an announcement - instead she ends her relationship with the man she is starting to love and submits a letter resigning her job. Its hard to like characters who over-react in such unrealistic ways.a short scene where the male romantic interest, Nick, organizes a football game for the boy in the wheelchair. The boy makes a pass that goes about five feet and it is declared a touchdown. Then the boy is handed the football, and Nick pushes the boy's wheelchair downfield while everyone pretends that they can't catch him. This scene was intended to be uplifting, but is so deeply insulting to "wheelchair athletes" in the real world that Hallmark should be ashamed.so many "changes of heart" that it keeps your head-spinning. Not only do the romantic leads run hot and cold on each other repeatedly, but the major adversary in the film inexplicably "changes heart" and offers up some terms that resolve a lot of difficulties.supernaturally intelligent kids that advise their parents on their relationship issues (a core Hallmark plot device.)scenes where kids say something for about 30 seconds that advances the plot and are then told "Time to go to bed now. Its past your bedtime" leading to a scene where the adults talk between themselves. If you're a kid in a Hallmark movie, it is seemingly always your bedtime.-completely unrealistic depictions of financial analysts and business operations and decision-making. Some of these plot-devices might have worked in a movie that developed these situations adequately. In Hats Off, they are briefly introduced, and amateurishly disposed of as mere devices along the road to getting the romantic leads to realize they love each other and finally, to kiss. This move has such lazy manipulative writing and is so cheap and cheesy that I took no joy in the events that it showed.

lydia_ravenswood While I wouldn't call this one amazing, it's certainly a nice one to watch for the winter season. I've watched A LOT of Hallmark holiday films and this one isn't as cheesy as some of the others airing this time of year. The acting is good to start with, at least by all the main actors. Some of the supporting could use a few more acting classes. Unlike other Hallmarks where the main couple seem to fall in love with a few days to a few weeks, this one has a more logical time-line, which makes the story a little more believable. The only question i have is how quickly the main male lead changes his tune. You'll understand when you watch.All in all, cute and simple, something to watch while decorating for the holidays or while waiting for the holiday meal to be done cooking.

boblipton Widowed Haylie Duff works at a small-town store where all they sell is Christmas-themed paraphernalia, all year round. When it turns out that sales are down for the last couple of years, her boss, whose immense office bespeaks the millions he has made off this venture over the years, parachutes his Wall-Street son, Antonio Cupo, over her. However, when he helps her wheelchair-bound son in a pumpkin-carving competition, things start to turn around in this ridiculously detailed but very watchable Hallmark romantic comedy.At least part of that is due to some very fine acting on the part of the leads. Neither of their characters wish to be in this situation and they behave in a way that bespeaks their dissatisfaction and professionalism -- pardon me if I think the actors felt this way about the movie and used that for their performances. Given the ridiculous assumptions as well as the obvious and cheap cries for sympathy in the script, this should have been one of the worst of the twelve Hallmark Christmas romcoms this year. Instead, it is surprisingly good.