"Rediscovering Christmas" is another assembly line Christmas film from Lifetime. If you read the credits, you may notice it was written by Karen Schaler, the writer of Netflix's "The Christmas Prince." You may remember that film for being more schmaltzy than story-driven. The same is true here but it somehow has even less story.
An interior designer (Jessia Lowndes) working for a department store (I guess?) has to make an appealing window display in time for Christmas. The store doesn't get enough screen time for us to know why it is failing. I guess young people with their "online shopping" has cut into the traditional retail space. That is the first instance in which the film has a weird anti-internet theme. It comes off as if a curmudgeonly person wrote this script though the author is a younger woman.
Lowndes is tricked home by her father to help her younger sister host a holiday party with the town's lawyer (B.J. Britt). Britt is another younger person with an anti-internet stance. He can't stand the idea of the town's Christmas festival being publicized on social media. The way Lowndes talks to Britt (do we have a hashtag?) seem really awkward to me. The actress seems to cringe her way through the cheesy dialog.
Lowndes decides to call in sick to work to continue working on the festival. She puts her assistant in charge to deal with the crabby department store boss. The boss is really difficult to deal with but at least the new hire is there. The festival which she's planning is to commemorate the meeting of Britt's grandparents. Don't both of these characters seem egotistical to you? I couldn't connect to either of them. At least they deserve each other.
It doesn't help matters that the leads despite their mutual beauty have little chemistry with each other. They spend a lot of time planning the event and interact like co-workers more than anything else. At least Lowndes has a good musical number in the final moments. I'd stay skip this one unless you are a Christmas fanatic.
An interior designer (Jessia Lowndes) working for a department store (I guess?) has to make an appealing window display in time for Christmas. The store doesn't get enough screen time for us to know why it is failing. I guess young people with their "online shopping" has cut into the traditional retail space. That is the first instance in which the film has a weird anti-internet theme. It comes off as if a curmudgeonly person wrote this script though the author is a younger woman.
Lowndes is tricked home by her father to help her younger sister host a holiday party with the town's lawyer (B.J. Britt). Britt is another younger person with an anti-internet stance. He can't stand the idea of the town's Christmas festival being publicized on social media. The way Lowndes talks to Britt (do we have a hashtag?) seem really awkward to me. The actress seems to cringe her way through the cheesy dialog.
Lowndes decides to call in sick to work to continue working on the festival. She puts her assistant in charge to deal with the crabby department store boss. The boss is really difficult to deal with but at least the new hire is there. The festival which she's planning is to commemorate the meeting of Britt's grandparents. Don't both of these characters seem egotistical to you? I couldn't connect to either of them. At least they deserve each other.
It doesn't help matters that the leads despite their mutual beauty have little chemistry with each other. They spend a lot of time planning the event and interact like co-workers more than anything else. At least Lowndes has a good musical number in the final moments. I'd stay skip this one unless you are a Christmas fanatic.