A Storybook Christmas

Firstly, good plot. Just good. Ali Liebert is just amazing, she definitely is a fan favourite. She always makes her characters work. First time watching Jake Epstein in one of these movies (I've previously seen him in Suits), and he did great. While I did think the leads had a good vibe going on, I didn't thought of it as the romantic kind. They just seemed really good friends.

Secondly, the fiancee in this movie served no purpose, we could have done without him. He did nothing but talk about his job and always had an excuse, but at least he wasn't... how do I say it? Most Hallmark boyfriends tend to be repulsive to me, because they don't even try in their relationship. This one did.

While we knew what to expect at the end, in my opinion, it felt kind of rush. The problem and the solution took place in all of ten minutes? Other than those, I actually really enjoyed it.

Ali Liebert is back in form in this latest holiday offering. There was something about her in the last one, A Gift to Cherish, that seemed a little off. It's been a week or more since I have seen this, so I'll just make this brief. This was the unexpectedly male nanny plot. He is a well-known children's author in disguise and she is an event planner who needs to wrangle this author to the career make or break event she is planning. Little does she know, this reclusive author is right under her nose. I loved that the male lead was just a normal-looking guy, and his rival, her boyfriend, was fictionally male model handsome. She is a controller and scheduler to the point that I really disliked her at times, and he has a more loosey-goosey approach to child raising. So it's kind of two plots for the price of one. It wasn't perfect. The constant repetition of "You are safe, You are loved" to her little niece (orphaned) was unbelievably cheesy. But all in all a complex story with a lot going on, some tension, and good chemistry make this worth watching.

This movie is a combination of inexperienced-nanny-fixes-controlling-executive, and another common plot line that isn't fully revealed until late, so I won't explicitly say what that is. There are enough clues as to what's going to happen at the end so most viewers will figure it out, certainly before Celeste does. (Even if it is easy to figure out, I wish reviewers would not give these things away without tagging spoilers.)

Ali Liebert isn't as controlling as I think she was meant to be, but then Liebert is just too sweet to be that rigid. There is a heartwarming aspect to the story as shown by Celeste's devotion to Finley reinforced by their backstory. Liebert does the role so well, and with tenderness, that it's hard to maintain her character as overly rigid.

Unlike a lot of Christmas movies where the female lead bonds with the male lead's child, the genders are switched, but the idea is the same. Jake Epstein has good chemistry with both the child, Habree Larratt , and aunt turned mom, Ali Liebert.

The story includes the token existing fiance which leads to some competitiveness in things like building a snowman, but the fiance never really seemed viable.

I thoroughly enjoyed this film. It is one of the better Hallmark films.

It had a more unique plot with great lead and other characters.

It is getting tiresome to see the same plots on so many of the Hallmarks.

Some reviewers seem to be so critical of some actors. These reviewers appear to want all their characters to be the same. I view those characters to be fake.

People are unique. So, it is refreshing to see unique characters.

I enjoy the diversity in characters, so I felt the characters in this film were great.

Despite loving Christmas so much, that is not to say that all films about and centred around Christmas are great. A fair share of them are not, and some aren't even good. There are quite a big number of classics and personally have seen in the past couple of years or so a good deal of well above average Christmas films. The quest that 'A Storybook Christmas' was part of has been and still is interesting and worth it but has also been very hit and miss.

'A Storybook Christmas' leans towards being one of the hits luckily and as far as the films seen as part of the quest goes it's somewhere around very high middle. Also to me it's one of the better 2019 Christmas films, which has been a very mixed not particularly exceptional year for them on the whole. There are a lot better Christmas films certainly, but also a lot worse (the worst of Hallmark for instance). 'A Storybook Christmas' has flaws and didn't bowl me over, but the concept sounded very cute and it was a very pleasant watch overall and serves its purpose very well.

My problems with 'A Storybook Christmas' have been mentioned already actually, but will state them anyway to show my agreement. The ending also seemed gotten over with too quickly and suddenly, it definitely felt rushed. Some of the dialogue is repetitive to the point of being beaten around the head and made me cringe.

Do agree too that the fiance character was not needed other than convenient plot device reasons, and he is not an interesting character either.

However, Ali Liebert does a great job in the lead. Celeste has character traits that should make her a hard character to warm to, and yes that is so at first, but Liebert is very charming and sympathetic. Also she doesn't look stiff in my view, and doesn't exaggerate any negative character traits that a lot of actors/actresses in similar type roles do in similar films. Every bit as likeable, even more so actually, is Jake Epstein in the more sympathetic (while not being too perfect) role, whose performance is very warm. And there was nothing unnatural or affected either. Habree Larrett is sweet without being too precocious. Libert and Epstein have a bond that felt genuine and easy to root for, it is charming and tender while not moving too fast or too slow.

The acting from all is above average even and most of the character relationships are very well handled. Only everything with the fiance doesn't work out so well, it lacked tension and wasn't necessary. Most of the dialogue is not too bad, it amuses in spots while also not being too heavy in the sentiment, it flows well on the whole. The story is far from perfect, but it's engaging, coherent, not overdone, light-hearted and it's heart-warming. It knew what tone to take, not being too frothy and keeping things light and becoming too dark or dreary. It's a lovely film to look at, especially the scenery, and the music is nostalgic and appropriately festive while not being as in your face and too constant as the music in other Christmas films.

Overall, likeable and charming. 7/10