Matchmaker Santa is a Hallmark movie gem. It works as a movie, has an interesting supporting cast, and delivers the right amount of holiday magic. I was expecting yet another Lacey Chabert Hallmark movie cheese bomb and was pleasantly surprised this movie went in a new direction with an actual plot and motivation for the characters.
Lacey plays Melanie, the mousy not too exciting midwesternish girl she plays in every Hallmark movie, but this time she is surrounded by a cast of fun characters. Santa Claus is around this entire movie and steals every scene he is in. He is a hoot and is involved from the get go instead of the last five minutes like most Hallmark movies.
Then we have Brady Bunch mom Florence Henderson as the hotel owner, who is actually overshadowed by her boisterous biker 60-something friend Debbie who has the hots for main love interest Dean. Then throw in John Ratzenberger (Ham from Toy Story) as a bumbling small town car mechanic and there is some actual entertainment here.
The boyfriend Justin is "CEO of his small company" or some ridiculous thing like that and is quite disinteresting, as is his one dimensional mom. But whoa, enter his subtly sexy high school fling Blaire and she becomes another scene stealer. She runs circles around Justin, just like Dean does around Melanie. Dean is OK as a love interest, has a tendency to let his southern accent slip into his speech, and is a wood carver of all things. Personally a movie about Dean and Blaire getting together would be much more interesting than what we got here, but overall Matchmaker Santa delivers the presents. And a bear.
Lacey plays Melanie, the mousy not too exciting midwesternish girl she plays in every Hallmark movie, but this time she is surrounded by a cast of fun characters. Santa Claus is around this entire movie and steals every scene he is in. He is a hoot and is involved from the get go instead of the last five minutes like most Hallmark movies.
Then we have Brady Bunch mom Florence Henderson as the hotel owner, who is actually overshadowed by her boisterous biker 60-something friend Debbie who has the hots for main love interest Dean. Then throw in John Ratzenberger (Ham from Toy Story) as a bumbling small town car mechanic and there is some actual entertainment here.
The boyfriend Justin is "CEO of his small company" or some ridiculous thing like that and is quite disinteresting, as is his one dimensional mom. But whoa, enter his subtly sexy high school fling Blaire and she becomes another scene stealer. She runs circles around Justin, just like Dean does around Melanie. Dean is OK as a love interest, has a tendency to let his southern accent slip into his speech, and is a wood carver of all things. Personally a movie about Dean and Blaire getting together would be much more interesting than what we got here, but overall Matchmaker Santa delivers the presents. And a bear.