La stella del Natale

The story of film star returned to home after not the most happy period in sentimental and professional life. And, a new purpose , relations with mother, a handsome mate, students and growing up of a Christmas play. Nothing surprising but charming. And , in many senses, just charming.

I agree with some of the other reviews here: this one was a bit dull, a bit too ordinary, at times. That said, I found the messaging of the movie to be warm and heartfelt (as another reviewer pointed out). The story revolves around Olivia O'Hara (played by Tori Anderson), a Hollywood actor who finds her love life on the front pages of the tabloids after a recent break-up with her former fiancé Ryan Wrangler (played by Matthew James Dowden). To get away from the press/paparazzi, she decides to (secretly) visit her hometown during the Christmas holiday, something she has avoided since the passing of her father. While home, she runs into a former high school classmate Casey (our other protagonist in this story, played by Victor Zinck Jr.), who now is a teacher at the school. The chance meeting sparks an old connection, and so, the romance begins in this slow but sweet Christmas movie. I have seen now several Hallmark, Lifetime, and/or other TV movies where the story revolves around a 'Hollywood star' or a 'Rockstar' who heads home (to a small town) and ends up helping teach/direct the local school (Christmas) play/choir. In fact, 'A Christmas Break', another of Lifetime's Christmas movies this year, has a similar story. This one is somewhere in the middle of the pack. The script, I felt dragged a bit, and the dialogue was sometimes unremarkable. I found myself disengaging with the film on a couple of occasions, having to stop myself from using an iPad. As I alluded to above, there are some good underlining messages in the story; for example, the giving nature of Olivia's sister Janey (played by Lia Frankland) and the advice/support Olivia gives to Jack (played by Matthew Nelson-Mahood). The acting was pretty good, overall. Like another reviewer, I know Anderson from watching Blindspot, and I have recently seen her in Hallmark's Love Under the Olive Tree (which was fairly good). She does well in this genre of film; she has the potential to become a Hallmark regular, for example (I mean that in a good way). In this one, she had a lovely performance, I thought. However, I agree with another reviewer, she could have shown some more emotion, for example, around the set-up by her Ex. Zinck Jr. too had a solid performance, yet I thought he could have also shown a tad more emotion (and facial expressions) at times. The chemistry between the two worked well on screen, I felt. It was believable. The supporting cast was a bit mixed. There was something a bit off with a couple of the more minor characters in the movie. Janet Kidder's performance as Olivia's mother seemed odd early on, but her performance was much stronger after the first couple of scenes. As I alluded to above, Frankland had a very cute performance as Janey. Finally, the movie has a pretty decent Christmas vibe to it, and the music and music editing was fine (which has not been the case with several Lifetime movies this season). All in all, it is a decent Christmas movie. It drags a bit, but if you stay the course, it is worth a watch.

Tori Anderson is a beauty and Victor Zinck is a stud and they both can act and they have chemistry in this movie. The script is weak and that's a common problem with holiday movies, but no offense to the cast. Zinck seemed a bit undertheweather with a horse voice, but it's still great to see him.

Here is hoping that Anderson and Zinck star in another movie soon, maybe a western themed movie in the Spring.

Good movie- simple story quite well done even if it is somewhat predictable.

interesting choice of Janet Kidder as the mother of Tori Anderson as she is only 16 years older.

There is a cute story here but it's buried under a ton of meandering dialogue. I love Tori Anderson's character, and She and Victor Zinck Jr do a great job and have good chemistry together. To me it just seems like the story is underdeveloped without interesting subplots, so I found myself multitasking during the movie, and that's never a good sign. I still think it's worth watching and if you have a fast forward button, even more so.