A Christmas Miracle Review

“A Christmas miracle? It’s like when something truly wonderful and unexpected happens this time of year.” 

Single mom Emma just took a temporary job at a lifestyle magazine and hopes to earn a full-time writing position. She pitches a cover story idea to her boss for the Christmas issue and gets shot down – only to soon discover her boss has stolen her idea and is running with it.

With the help of her co-worker, Marcus, Emma just may find her Christmas miracle story anyway, thanks to a street musician. It’s the Hallmark Movies & Mysteries movie, “A Christmas Miracle” (2019).

Our Review: A Christmas Miracle

So what we have here is basically three stories.

Story 1: The budding romance of Emma and Marcus.

This is a slow burn. Nothing special here in terms of chemistry. Marcus happens to be wherever Emma is. Then they’re suddenly just together. All the time.

Their biggest challenge? They have a (barely heated) argument about whether Emma should tell their boss, Valerie, about her concerns about the couple who is set to be the cover story.

There is no real journey for either Emma or Marcus. Emma is in exactly the same place as where she begins, while Marcus starts off kind of Grinchy and by the end is happier and more inspired in his work, thanks to Emma.

Story 2: How Emma responds to professional backstabbing.

Essentially, Valerie stealing Emma’s idea is the big conflict of the movie. And we see how Emma plans to right this wrong.

Eventually, Marcus and Emma’s friend, Nancy, convince her to pursue writing her own version of the story anyway. Emma remains positive and sticks to her principles (doing the right thing).

This story leads us to our third story.

Story 3: Santa Dean and his estranged daughter, Sissy.

The story of the street musician, Santa Dean, doesn’t even start until we’re past the halfway point of the movie. Again, terrible pacing.

This story is supposed to be the Christmas miracle, what the movie title comes from.

Emma tries to convince Santa Dean to let her help him and reunite him with his daughter. Emma also talks to Sissy. Once.

Neither of these conversations go particularly well for Emma. Yet, Santa Dean texts her out of the blue and agrees to let Emma help. And at the end, Sissy just shows up at the concert and they play a song together at a concert.

For two people who hadn’t talked in about a decade, it sure didn’t take much convincing for this “miracle” reunion to happen. Plus, Santa Dean and Sissy were essentially the “B” characters here anyway, so we really learned next to nothing about them (other than they both like music and they haven’t talked in a long time).

There was huge potential here in these three stories. But what we got was simply disappointing.

Once again, Hallmark gives us a movie that moves at a snail’s pace and is short on emotional impact (and engaging dialogue).

It’s another one of those movies that suffers from the “and then” problem. This happens. And then this. And then that.

In the end, we have a story without plot. Lots of stuff happens, but much of it is window dressing without substance.

The Nice List

Visuals & Sound

“A Christmas Miracle” was another Hallmark movie that looks great but just doesn’t have a equally great story.

The office was an explosion of Christmas, in a good way. The place where Santa Dean was playing also looked fantastic. All the scenes featured just the right amount of Christmas, for the most part.

The one exception being the ridiculous amount of tree decorations on the tree Emma and Marcus brought to the office. It was way over the top – there was barely any tree visible!

Music was decent as well. The scene where Santa Dean teaches Tyler how to play Jingle Bells was cute.

In particular, we liked the way “Silent Night” was used in the story to tie a couple of the stories together through Santa Dean. In addition to “Silent Night” being Tyler’s favorite song, Santa Dean also taught his daughter how to play that song on violin.

The Naughty List

Anticlimactic Ending

So, we never got an almost kiss (we blame the poor timing of that office mail cart guy), but we did get the expected Emma/Marcus kiss.

But then, here comes Nancy. To tell Emma “I think you just found your happy.”

You think? Um, thanks? Really, we didn’t need you to tell us that one.

This weird trend of not ending on a happy note (the kiss) is kind of odd. Especially when what follows is so uninteresting and unnecessary.

The Christmas Magazine

OK, first off, who puts out the Christmas edition of a magazine a week before Christmas?

And with an incomplete cover story, no less?

Perhaps this is why sales have been tanking for the past three years.

Well, that or the fact that they’re still putting out physical magazines in 2019.

Goofs

At the beginning, Emma tries to give Marcus a miniature Christmas tree. He doesn’t take it.

In the very next scene in Marcus’s office, there’s a miniature Christmas tree in his office – but it doesn’t look a thing like the one Emma tried to give him. So, he hated the tree so much that he went out and got his own?

Also, if he’s such a grinch, why does he have so many decorations in his office?

We also noticed that the locations of his decorations moved from scene to scene as well. Except for that mug and cookies, those never moved.

Unanswered Question

• How did Santa Dean know where Emma lived to send Tyler his gift?

You’ll Fall Asleep…

Yep. And if you sleep through the first hour, you really won’t miss much of anything.

The WORST List

Multiple Pointless Scenes

This movie felt much longer than it was – mainly because there were quite a few unnecessary scenes.

How many meetings did we have to sit through? We don’t want to be in meetings in real life, why would we want them in a Christmas movie!

Plus, there were a couple of scenes with Emma and Nancy just talking that just ultimately didn’t matter for the larger story. In other words, we didn’t need to see them.

Super Predictable

Without obstacles, everything is just predictable. And this movie barely put any obstacles in front of the characters.

We knew Valerie stole her idea before it was revealed in the movie.

We knew Santa Dean and Sissy would reunite. Because duh. The title.

We knew Emma’s kid, Tyler, would be fine.

Needle Retention? Again?

If we see one more terrible movie that includes discussion about needle retention, we will turn this Christmas right around!

You’ll Cringe…

When Marcus tells Emma she reminds him of his ex-girlfriend.

You’ll Yell at TV…

• “That’s not how your write!” (When Emma talks about hoe she always trusts her gut because it. Never leads you astray – except this nonsensical notion has been disproved plenty of times. You don’t write by waiting for for a story or inspiration. You have to do the hard work of going out, talking to people, and finding a story. Good stories rarely fall in your lap.)
• “That was the Christmas miracle?!” (There was no Christmas “magic” involved in this reunion. Emma talked to two stubborn people who missed each other are barely nudged them in the right direction. There were no stakes. Plus, aside from her violin playing, the music and singing we heard at the concert was more “Painful Night” than “Silent Night”.)

If You Liked A Christmas Miracle You Might Like

• Karen Kingsbury’s Maggie’s Christmas Miracle
• A Joyous Christmas
• Once Upon a Christmas Miracle
• The Christmas Train
• Home Alone