While I watch many movies in December that I wouldn't watch at any other time of year, I still try to search high and low for the real gems. That's hard when it comes to the many TV movies churned out by companies wanting to supply people with some distracting cheer and warmth to play out while they wrap gifts and decorate their home. Sometimes you get something good though, whether it's a film with some unexpected laughs or a film that benefits from a stronger premise than the standard "busy professional woman is forced to spend some time in a small town, where she meets and falls for a laid-back small-town man who reminds her that there's more to life than just a career".
Meghan Ory plays an angel named Monica, a bit frustrated when she ends up forced to work alongside another angel named Michael (Benjamin Ayres). The two of them make connections between mortal human beings, and Christmas is a great time to do that, but they have a very different approach to the job. Monica is more about using classic moves to establish something deep and meaningful. Michael believes that fun is key to love. Can they work together to succeed in matching Patrick (Francesco Filice) and Daisy (Lindura)? It's vital that they do, and Gabriel (Michael Dickson) keeps reminding them of that, particularly as they seem to be struggling to get on the same wavelength.
Directed by Christie Will Wolf, someone with a whole heap of Christmas movies under their belt, and with Ory also working as a writer, as well as her work in front of the camera, this is a film that feels well-crafted and, unlike so many others, reassuringly slick. It's obviously still restricted in certain ways (the budget, the main messaging that needs to be delivered), but it's generally good fun, helped by two charming leads.
Ory is very enjoyable here, doing well to make her fastidious and set-in-her-ways character less annoying than she could be. Ayres has the easier role, the angel who enjoys watching and experiencing the human experience, and he moves through every scene with a consistently positive and fresh outlook. Filice and Lindura are less interesting, but it's fun to watch them being manipulated by our angelic match-makers, Dickson is suitably calm and smiley as Gabriel, and there are perfectly solid supporting turns from Amanda Jordan, Linda McCurdy, and S. G. Simpson.
You can tell every moment has been written to slot in between ad breaks, you can sense a familiarity in the score, and there's nothing here that moves too far away from what you'd expect. It's all elevated by a little bit of something extra though, whether that's the simple and effective depiction of heaven/angel world, the interactions between our leads, or even just the fact that it adds a couple of nice touches to explain some of the rules governing the conduct of angels. I genuinely enjoyed it, and would watch it again.
6/10
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