Today we take the Christmas decorations down and the removal of the tinsel and trimmings definitely gives me the January blues, so I’m keen for an easy watch to lift the spirits. I’m drawn to Christmas at Grand Valley, a 2018 effort starring Danica McKellar - Winnie from telly’s The Wonder Years. I’m hoping the presence of an actor who was dear to my heart as a young lad will give me a warm, tingly nostalgic glow to counteract January’s dark crappiness.
It's certainly pleasant. McKellar is Kelly, a jaded artist who heads from Chicago to her dad’s hotel in the picturesque Grand Valley just in time for Christmas, hoping a shot of small town magic will reinvigorate her painting. There she encounters the obligatory too-good-to-be-true single dad named Leo (Brennan Elliot again) who’s secretly auditing the hotel, with plans to shut it down. Their worlds collide, unexpected romance blossoms, everyone learns something and the hotel/Christmas is saved. You know the drill.
It's unremarkable feel-good stuff, without the quirks that made Shoe Addict... and …Under Wraps stand out. However, this still pleasantly surprises me when I realised that Kelly’s dad is played by Dan Lauria – flippin’ Kevin Arnold’s dad off The Wonder Years! It’s a reunion!
Lauria is like a big wounded, adorable teddy bear with his hangdog expression, bringing a level of pathos to this struggling hotelier not commonly seen in these things. These films are samey, sure, but their good-natured vibes are largely hard to resist. They run like well-oiled machines – scud missiles calibrated to launch directly at your Christmas-bone.
…Grand Valley takes aim but doesn’t quite hit the target for me. Maybe these films are just becoming too predictable already. The theme of people getting along even though they’re opposing forces is a great one, but the cynic in me is starting to wonder whether the real message of these movies is ‘who cares what a person’s motive is, as long as they’re sexy?’
Though the stakes are seemingly quite high in this one, there’s little conflict and everything feels a little too safe and inevitable. There are some twists near the end to make things slightly more interesting, but it’s all too far-fetched. Apparently Kelly’s paintings, inspired by her romantic getaway, are so good that the gang are able to save the ailing business just by posting some photos of them on the hotel’s website. Hmmmm.
Once again, Hallmark asks us to submit to the cheesy magic, but, sadly, the story's not quite compelling enough to fully sell it. Still, Grand Valley itself looks like something from a fairytale picture postcard and is a quaint enough place to visit to help me dodge the winter blues for a while.
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