After some disappointments so far in the Countdown to Christmas, I was looking forward to this movie because it featured our (my wife and I's) favorite male lead in Ryan Paevey.
We immediately noticed the visually poor pairing with Janel Parrish, who is too young, short, and frankly, not in Ryan's league. However, Janel usually plays energetic, adorable characters, and so we hoped that her character would overcome the superficial disparity between the leads.
Unfortunately, this movie went the opposite way. Instead of Paige, the main female character, winning Dylan, the male lead, and us over with her charm, passion, joy, and kindness, she spends at least the second half of the movie angry at Dylan for no good reason, while he makes the situation worse, and even more unrealistic, by repeatedly apologizing for something that wasn't his fault. The final half hour of the movie is essentially Dylan moving heaven and earth to please Paige, even though there is no clear indication that she deserves it.
Maybe I'll sweeten slightly to this movie with repeated viewings, but my first impression is that this movie never overcomes this manufactured conflict or its rather one-sided resolution.
Unfortunately, we are seeing a trend in 2021's slate, at least early, that started in bombastic fashion in "Boyfriends of Christmas Past." The issue is that the female lead often represents a ultra-modern feminist view that every woman deserves a great guy, regardless of her actual actions towards that guy. The female leads are brimming with entitlement while the male leads are going into full simp mode. That is NOT romance.
Coyote Creek Christmas
2021
Drama / Romance
Coyote Creek Christmas
2021
Drama / Romance
Keywords: christmas
Plot summary
Paige is a successful event planner but now she's going home to her parents inn over Christmas. When she arrives, to her dismay, she find out that her parents has scaled back the Inn's traditional Christmas celebrations that they usually has for the guests. Paige immediately starts to organize a celebration as it should be. At the same time the Inn is visited by Dylan and his son Noah. They are on their way to celebrate Christmas at Grand Canyon. What Paige don't know is that her parents plan to sell the Inn and that Dylan, who runs a hotel chain together with his brother, is there to check it out as a potential buyer.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
Director
Tech specs
720p.WEB 1080p.WEBMovie Reviews
Poor pairing and story didn't help
Gave it a 5/10 due to the script
Janel and Ryan deserved a better script. There is only so much actors can do to help a script that doesn't make sense.
- Parents created a ridiculous situation and DRAGGED leading man into it, against his will.
- Leading lady found out and put 100% blame on the leading man.
- Parents allowed leading man to take the fall for the situation THEY created.
My husband got up and walked out, he was so frustrated. I only stayed because I enjoyed watching Janel and Ryan, but was equally as frustrated.
I found Charlotte the Marmot...
Overall, this is a pretty ordinary and unoriginal (even for Hallmark) Christmas movie with some decent acting. It does, however, do a good job of getting you (the viewer) into the Christmas spirit via some festive scenes and some beautiful scenery, props, and sets. And don't forget Charlotte the marmot, you got like 'find the marmot' tradition in Coyote Creek. The protagonists in this story are Paige (played by Janel Parrish),a career-driven woman at an event-planning business where she has been feeling unappreciated of late, and Dylan (played by Ryan Paevey),a single father who gave up on love when his wife left him to raise their son Noah (played by Azriel Dalman). Both find themselves in Coyote Creek this Christmas holiday. Paige, who is looking forward to spending the holiday at her parents' Coyote Creek Inn and continuing its Christmas traditions, meets Dylan, who is there scoping out the 'mom and pop' inn as a potential investment for him and his brother's development corporation. And so our story begins, as the two start spending time together, enjoying all that this scenic town and inn in the Rockies has to offer during Christmas. Though the plot was predictable and unoriginal, it was pleasant enough and did keep me engaged (for the most part). However, as other reviewers have pointed out, the plot was overly complicated around the selling of the Inn. Simply put, it is unclear why the parents did not tell their daughter they were selling, especially if they thought she had no interest in returning to Coyote Creek. The acting overall was pretty good. I usually enjoy Paevey's Hallmark movies. For example, his performance in last year's, A Timeless Christmas, was strong. He had this warm and gentle vibe to his performance here, which I enjoyed watching on screen. Parrish was pretty good, though I had a difficult time connecting to her performance in some scenes. The chemistry between the two was much more 'low key' in this one than in other Hallmark movies, which potentially explains some of the reviews. I felt, it worked well; that is, it was convincing enough for this story. As I alluded to above, I enjoyed the Christmas atmosphere and feel of the movie, which is one of the things I like about Hallmark films. The find Charlotte the Marmot tradition was fun and cute. The 'Christmas around the World' theme at the inn was a nice touch. I also really enjoy those scenes where Hallmark has these educational moments by including information on and/or historical accounts of particular Christmas cultures and traditions. In this one, we learned about cobwebs on Christmas trees in Ukrainian folklore. All in all, it is an entertaining Christmas movie, not one of Hallmark's best but certainly not one of their worse.