Directed by: Ryan Landels
Written by: Ryan Landels
Starring: Erin Krakow, Daniel Lissing, Kurt Szarka, Christopher Russell, Benjamin Ayres
Rating: [2/5]
Due to the magical element of Santa Claus, it makes sense why children would ask for nonmaterial items when asking what they want for Christmas. It would surprise no one to hear that a child asked Santa for their divorcing parents to reunite. In Santa Tell Me, we get a character who asks Santa to let her know who the love of her life will be and in adulthood finally gets the answer, while still a bit unclear. Silly and inconsequential, this film does not necessarily stand out amongst its genre but does provide a few laughs.
From a young age, wishing for Santa to let her know who the love of her life would be, Olivia (Erin Krakow), now an adult, receives a magical letter stating that the love of her life is named Nick, and she must find him by Christmas Eve. While skeptical about this, by happenstance, she meets three different men named Nick that all have the looks and personality to fit the bill of what she asked from Santa all those years ago.
The thought of Santa playing the long game in Olivia’s life where he waits all of these years to tell our protagonist the name of her soul mate while also giving this firm deadline deserves a bit of a chuckle. Especially given that the name he presented to Olivia happens to be his own name does raise some questions as well. It presents a difficult position for Olivia, as she needs to decipher which of these three Nicks is the one she asked for all of those years ago. Each of them different with likeable traits, they all have the same thing in common: they are crazy about her. All of this sits on top of the stress of getting her big break in presenting her big break in an HGTV-style television stow where she has to work with Chris (Daniel Lissing), who she does not care for.
With Olivia given this opportunity to craft a holiday special, the creative freedom she thought she could operate with gets vanquished with the reality of her having to work with Chris, a New York-based producer. Olivia’s not the biggest fan because he tends to produce trashier reality shows in her eyes, and they inevitably butt heads on how to put together this special. Chris wants to utilize Olivia’s beautiful childhood home, which no one thought to buy, surprisingly in all of these years, as what they should display as the makeover that Olivia will lead. They truly cannot stand each other and given that his name is Chris, this enemies-to-lovers story could certainly not happen, right? Well, I’ll let you use your imagination on how this story plays out, I’m sure it will not take long.
The hijinks of this movie exists in Olivia balancing all of these dates with these three Nicks as she tries to determine which of them could be the one and how she goofs up on multiple occasions which lead to injuries. Despite all of this, these three men cannot get enough of her, which makes the decision all the more difficult. It must have her questioning why this all had to happen in such a short period of time and if she must contend with destiny when feelings begin to spark between her and Chris as he proves himself to be more than just this shallow man she initially perceived him to be.
Santa Tell Me does not throw in any surprises your way in how its plot progresses. It did lend itself to my wife and I conversing on what a better title of this film would have been. She said “In the Nick of Time” would have worked well. I certainly have to agree with her there, but that’s what happens when the film itself fails to entertain, even with a silly premise such as this one. It had its humorous moments of where Olivia would continually mess up and still have these men fighting each other for her. It does not help that she does not really have chemistry with anyone in this film, especially the one she’s truly meant to be with, in the end. A reality that ultimately drags this film down, in addition to what typically ails these Hallmark Christmas films.
Films with Josh 