While loving Christmas (a lifelong love too) and having liked/loved many Christmas films, there are plenty of Christmas films that are too sappy and cheese ridden as well as predictable. Have seen quite a few films in the past few years with this type of story, which has been familiar territory for most holidays (all holidays not just Christmas) for a while now, and they have varied in success, some are very charming, sweet and engaging while others are too simplistic, dull and silly.
'A Golden Christmas' has elements of both extremes, leaning sadly more towards the more negative category though for other reasons. It is definitely a watchable film on its own and it was great seeing 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer's' Nicholas Brendan in the male lead role. But it is not much much of a Christmas film and is hugely unbalanced by one character. Lets not get started on the truly misleading advertising, that as others have said indicates a sweet inoffensive film with dogs as main characters when it is really nothing of the sort.
There are things that 'A Golden Christmas' does more than serviceably in. It is pleasant looking, especially the scenery inside and particularly out. The music doesn't sound cheap or over-bearing, and was clearly done by someone that knew what they were writing music for. Brendan is very engaging in his role.
Liked the supporting cast a good deal too, with the best thing about the film being a truly delightful Elisa Donovan. It was very interesting and nice to see a sympathetic side to Bruce Davison. There are some cute moments here and there.
It is a real shame that 'A Golden Christmas' is severely let down and unbalanced by the grossly overdone unlikeability of the character of Jessica. A character that Andrea Roth (who has given competent performances elsewhere) overdoes, with that much negativity, very little character growth and not many redeeming merits the character is intolerable. It is very difficult to be charmed, amused or moved by the story when one hates the lead character this much.
More often than not, 'A Golden Christmas' is very cheesy and contrived. Especially at the end where it all feels too conveniently neat. The story is thin and unoriginal, with very little of the charm and heart factors, a dull pace and sometimes a mean-spirited edge. The chemistry between Roth and Brendan isn't there, the relationship is too underdeveloped and the chemistry itself is too much of a mismatch. As a result of one character being excessively nasty and the other being likeable but at times too nice and naive. The dialogue doesn't always flow and the cheese and sugar gets too much at times.
Overall, watchable but not great. 5/10.
