"The Christmas Temp" is one of Lifetime's 2019 Christmas marathon movies. This is one of the better ones. This is mostly the result of good casting in Sara Canning and Robin Dunne as Hazel and Jonah. The two of them lead this opposites attract holiday love story in which a frazzled struggling artist (Canning) is hired by a junior hotel manager (Dunne) to create their Christmas display.
Canning brings a zaniness to the role that's just perfect to her character. Her apartment is disorganized and she can't keep a schedule to save her life. Her face and mannerisms portray her as someone who is overwhelmed by just about everything. Dunne is great as boring, strait-laced corporate type with horrible taste in Christmas decorations. When he tries to hula hoop with a Christmas wreath during one of their dates, the actor looks like he is in actual pain. It's funny and humanizing to see something like this in a made-for-tv film.
The film for the most part straddles the line between romance and creepiness really well. Don't forget that Jonah is employing Hazel even though they are falling in love. The love doesn't feel forced. Both of these characters are passionate about what they do and eager to move up. Hazel gets more development. Jonah is kind of there as the Hot Guy. That's ok though. For a corporate man in a story like this, "development" is a promotion. For Hazel, as an artist, development is going from seeing art as a way of promoting herself to conveying emotion. The script is rather blunt with these ideas though I enjoyed the effort.
The ending is such a big disappointment because it throws the slow story development away in favor of a clumsy cliched ending. Jonah professes to someone that he has to steal a generator because he is in love wants Hazel's art display to work as intended. I'm sure this ending was a result of network-imposed runtime deadlines. Still, this is a watchable film that I can't recommend because of its dumb ending. What a shame.
Canning brings a zaniness to the role that's just perfect to her character. Her apartment is disorganized and she can't keep a schedule to save her life. Her face and mannerisms portray her as someone who is overwhelmed by just about everything. Dunne is great as boring, strait-laced corporate type with horrible taste in Christmas decorations. When he tries to hula hoop with a Christmas wreath during one of their dates, the actor looks like he is in actual pain. It's funny and humanizing to see something like this in a made-for-tv film.
The film for the most part straddles the line between romance and creepiness really well. Don't forget that Jonah is employing Hazel even though they are falling in love. The love doesn't feel forced. Both of these characters are passionate about what they do and eager to move up. Hazel gets more development. Jonah is kind of there as the Hot Guy. That's ok though. For a corporate man in a story like this, "development" is a promotion. For Hazel, as an artist, development is going from seeing art as a way of promoting herself to conveying emotion. The script is rather blunt with these ideas though I enjoyed the effort.
The ending is such a big disappointment because it throws the slow story development away in favor of a clumsy cliched ending. Jonah professes to someone that he has to steal a generator because he is in love wants Hazel's art display to work as intended. I'm sure this ending was a result of network-imposed runtime deadlines. Still, this is a watchable film that I can't recommend because of its dumb ending. What a shame.