I should've paid attention to the ratings/reviews on this one, but I went ahead and watched it anyway as I'm working through the '23 CTC catalogue. First, let me list what I enjoyed:
1. Rafael de la Fuente.
...That's it.
Now, I thought Rafael did a great job as Enrique. I felt the emotion, and he came across well as the heartsick dad just wanting his family whole. But even his performance couldn't salvage this.
I understand what the plot was trying to do: show that both Enrique and Rebecca had their issues and had things to work on as the reason for their separation. But the deeper and deeper we got into the film, I found myself siding with him ultimately. I don't even understand WHY he married Rebecca in the first place. She's downright awful. No hate to the actress of course, she did the best with what she was given script wise, but my God. She (Rebecca) was so short, snippy and rude for a majority of the film. Even her happy moments had me waiting for the other shoe to drop, in that she'd get mad AGAIN for some unknown reason.
It felt like she was antagonizing Enrique all the time, but never had any self-reflection to acknowledge her own shortcomings. A scene I really disliked was when Candy, as sweet as she was (and I suppose another small highlight of the film), offered to pick the kids up and Rebecca jumped to conclusions, thinking that her husband was cheating on her. As if he'd ever shown any indication of anything other than wanting to reconcile with his wife.
Plot wise, too, something that was simply ridiculous was the whole thing of Rebecca's book. There's no way she would've been working the DAYS leading up to Christmas on a novel ABOUT Christmas that would get published that soon. I'm not even in the literary field, and I know there's no turnaround that quick, lol. If she was a steady author with the publishing company, they would've been working on it months in advance to get ready for the holiday season.
Overall, the movie was just really bad. The kids weren't even acting cute, more so irritating, and don't even get me started on the grandma and sister stealing mail (aka a felony).
The premise seemed cool, but spoiling it by showing the audience that the wishes weren't really getting granted by Santa and the magic pen, well, ruined the magic.
The Liam angle was odd, too. Honestly, with the way Rebecca was acting, I would've preferred everyone went their separate ways, and Enrique pursued Candy. Liam and Rebecca had an odd vibe too, almost bordering on romantic interest, but not quite? I really don't understand the story direction there.
Skip this one. The plot was flimsy, the acting was bad except for Rafael (and even so, I had to skip past that singing number at the end, because...what?), and honestly...free Enrique at this point.
