Christmas at Grand Valley

The coolest thing about this movie is The Wonder Years Kevin Arnold's grumpy dad (Dan Lauria), here playing the cheerful father of The Wonder Years ' Winnie (Danica McKeller). Other than that, there really isn't much here....

This year of holiday moves on Hallmark have been a real hit or miss for the 2018 season. This isn't one of their worst but it's not one of their better either. I happen to love Brennon Elliot and I enjoy quite a bit of Danica McKellar movies. I was expecting so much. Danica has been in so many Christmas Hallmark movies that I enjoyed except this movie. This movie just fell short. The supporting cast was great. I found myself more intrigue by the supporting cast story than the actually main story. I can't say if Brennon and Danica just didn't have good chemistry or if this was just a poorly written movie. I usually rematch the Christmas Movies as much as I can before hallmark goes back to their regular programming, it's safe to say I saw this once and won't be watching it again. I hope Hallmarks 2019 Christmas countdown line up has better movies than the 2018 line up.

Typical Hallmark; plots are similar. Chemistry between the stars wasn't the best but the trees weren't wilted and the snow looked real.

Christmas at Grand Valley is full of overused tropes like a homecoming to a charming small town, an estate in jeopardy, and a big city workaholic guy coming to seal its fate. He's also a widowed father, and the heroine is a struggling artist. A lot of dialogue is forced, especially the way the children speak is unrealistic. Yet the movie is heartwarming and exactly what you'd expect to get from Hallmark.

I always look forward to a Christmas movie with Danica McKellar. This one is so poorly written that even Danica can't do much with it. I did enjoy most of the supporting cast, but this is not a movie I'll ever need to watch again.