Look, I get people that didn't like this film. The story is your basic Christmas Rom Com. No character is very nuanced or anything like that. At the same time, it's a Christmas Rom Com, nobody comes in here looking for the next Schindler's List. So by those measures, that being a Halmark-like Christmas film, it's good.
That being said, there are things that give this some unique qualities to it that make it good, and better than most Halmark style Christmas films. A good portion of that is the Latin culture peppered throughout. It's not throwing it in your face, or saying you should like it because it's a cast of Latinos/Latinas. But it's there naturally and because of that alone, this does make it stand out from your typical Halmark; in a similar way that 'The Photograph' did for Rom Com's in 2020(though I will say that film had a better story and more depth to it). And as a Latino it's just nice to see that it can be a part of a film, without it having to be the identity of the film in entirety. The second is the two leads of our cast. Aimee Garcia is charming, mostly know her from Lucifer and a few other things. While not a deep role or anything like that, she's charming and hope she gets more roles that help her spread her wings a bit more. Though in all fairness, this is much like Emilia Clarke doing 'Me Before You' near the end of Game of Thrones, just proving she can do something different other than the role she's most known for.
Freddie Prinze Jr. , hearthrob of the 90's and in the last decade or two mostly more known for his voice-acting if anything. He does a good job though and has equal amounts of charm as Aimee. The whole cast in general does a good job and even some storylines that could be way more cliche or make certain characters unlikable, they either don't do or breeze past them quickly, so that's another thing I will give this film credit for.
In general, it's a charming, harmless film with likable characters, performances, and some really good scoring of holiday classics in the background. And you know what, sometimes, especially these past two years, we all need something nice and warm with likable characters to pass a perfect runtime of an hour and a half. Not every film has to be deep or have characters that are unlikable to be good. Nor does a film have to be amazing or the best of the best. Sometimes it's okay for a film to just be good, and that's enough sometimes.
