Directed by: Stacey N. Harding
Written by: Amyn Kaderali
Starring: Maggie Lawson, Christopher Russell, Marlie Collins, Matt Visser, Frances Flanagan
Rating: [2.5/5]
Big box stores have notoriously developed a tendency to enter smaller towns to eliminate small business and soak up the market share. Offer low prices their local and smaller competitors could not possibly match to drive them out of business and have this customer base to themselves. It presents a ripe opportunity for one of these bis businesses to serve as the villain for a made-for-television Christmas romance film such as A Lot Like Christmas. Small business virtues takes on a conglomerate with a romance stuffed in the middle.
For many years, Jessica (Maggie Lawson) and her family have owned and operated a Christmas tree farm everyone in Hudson Springs frequents. However, this year, big box store, Harvest Garden Supply has recently opened and through the direction of marketing executive, Clay (Christopher Russell), are selling Christmas trees at a much lower price than Jessica’s family farm to drive store traffic. With this direct, threat to her family’s business, Jessica needs to get creative to fight back.
For any qualms I have with this film, at the very least it does a good job and describing exactly how these big business destroy local family ones. Harvest Garden Supply does not need to sell Christmas trees in order to succeed as a business. In fact, Clay even acknowledged they serve as a loss-leader with the hope that it draws people to the store where they can purchase other items with healthier profit margins. All to say, this large company can survive without selling something that undercuts the lifeblood of a local business, which creates the conundrum between Jessica and Clay. Honestly, it’s quite surprising to see a film of his genre dive this deep into the finances and economics of running a Christmas tree farm and how marketing plays such a vital role in its success but here we are.
With the budding relationship between Clay and Jessica, however, comes with a bit of deception as the former comes to this small town and befriends the latter without fully disclosing he works for the big bad corporation that just moved in next door. We get to witness what a cute pairing they make, and Clay hopes he can convince her of him being a great guy before she inevitably finds about his true identity and who he works for. Therefore, this film asks the age-old question of whether one can separate the person from their line of work, which proves difficult for Jessica given that his Christmas tree farm carries such emotional weight for herself and her family and to be with someone who stands to destroy it proves difficult to reconcile.
Like many of the films within this genre, A Lot Like Christmas heavy depends on the idea of the two characters at the center being a good pairing worth rooting for. After all, we have the big city guy from Manhattan having to endure the lack of conveniences of this small town meeting a by-product of it in Jessica. In a sense, the pair represent where they come from and seek to display if their differences can bring them together despite the business element of their lives and it mostly works. In the moments of courtship and the initial relationship building between the pair, you can buy into their interest for each other. This film wins the major battle in winning over the audience.
Even with mostly praise for A Lot Like Christmas, it has the same issues that plague many films within this genre where it lacks in the filmmaking department and where it’s writing and acting leaves much to be desired. However, when trying to achieve the baseline entertainment and stated goals for Christmas romances, these films could have done much worse. Instead, we receive a film that gets into the realities of running a family business and how it contends with a major corporation looking to disrupt and suck up the consumer dollars available in this town. It spends much more time than anticipated going into how individuals have to go where the jobs are and how it creates conflicts in other areas of their lives. Couple that with a winning duo at the center of it all, and this film proves it has plenty to appreciate given its genre and production budget.
Films with Josh 
