A Wish for Christmas (2016)

Lacey Chabert plays a total doormat who is turned into an assertive, confident closer via a Christmas wish. Question is, after getting the wish granted, should she still have some of that overly-apologetic wimpy character. My opinion is that it should be a lot less than the way it is played. Chabert goes back and forth from assertive to apologizing. Constantly. I guess the writers and/or director thinks otherwise, but to me it came off badly. Chabert didn't seem convincing in either one.Green also flip flopped. In the beginning he was over-demanding, shouting negative orders at the one guy who seemed to be his assistant. When he is with Sara on the road, he is ready to give up and only she salvages the car rental and the appointment. At times he seems to let her lead him around and at other times he seems angry that she is at least taking a last shot when there is nothing left to lose. He frequently has uncertainty in his eyes which is not consistent with the CEO of this company. After she seems to blow the pitch, he gets angry and bossy again. Then he shows up at work on Christmas as a nice guy again.I read reviews that complain the ending is too abrupt. While I agree that it wasn't totally comfortable, I also disagree thinking that there was no real mystery about what took place off screen. Neither scene, whether the client or the dad, would have been easy to film, or entertaining.I also read a review that said Sara returned to being wimpy. (BTW, that review has spoilers and is not marked as such.) But, her apologies to her boss after the failed pitch are no different than several apologies that took place earlier and it was certainly no wimp that climbed into the limo with the client. And she did not wimp out with her boss in the final scene.The film was lacking in romantic moments. It doesn't totally make sense that they are kissing at the end. And I don't remember a lot of humor. But there was a heartwarming sense of pride each time Sara took charge, and in the scene with the little girl, and with Peter's family. I was thinking we should call Sara "the fixer".I had trouble rating this movie. The first time I watched it, I left a rating of 9. After the second time, I downgraded it mostly because of the lack of romance.

Thank you to the other reviewers who wrote about the dissatisfying ending. I did the same thing, re-watching the ending to see if I somehow missed the conversations between the male lead (Peter) and his father, and the female lead (Sara) and the jerky client. How the heck did everything get wrapped up so neatly? And I agree that it certainly appeared that Peter would not have run after Sara at the end if she hadn't gotten the contract signed, since he was totally cold to her when she arrived. Wow. True love.And way too much wasted filler... for example, wouldn't it have been cool if the mother and daughter who Sara helped at the car rental agency turned out to be the client's family, which is why he had a change of heart??? As it was, it seemed like just a silly waste of time that could otherwise have been used to explain the "happy ending."

But if Lacey Chabert's in it and it's Hallmark I'll usually give it a solid look. Lacey has become the Queen of Hallmark Christmas movies, she's quietly attractive, distinctive, and with a little edge to her. I really liked her last few Hallmark Christmas entries, this one seemed a little forced or something. Lacey is a marketing wiz who won't stand up for herself, at the company Christmas party she gets courage from Santa, and then gets thrown into a challenging marketing pitch with company CEO Greene. I know Greene is also a Hallmark staple (who I hadn't seen before), he was okay but something about this just didn't feel right (as opposed to, say, Once Upon a Holiday where things seemed to effortlessly flow). So I would recommend it to the Hallmark hard core but not necessarily others.

Very cute, but terrible ending. This woman made everything okedoke at the end by going back to her wimpy self, not speaking her mind, not standing up for herself. To make her man happy, she needed to endure abusive, demeaning comments from the man they were trying to get a contract with. She apologizes to him, goes to her man, he finds out she wimped out but got the contract, and he liked her again. No apology from the boyfriend. Bad Christmas movie. Bad. Not to mention appearing to leave out important parts.Very cute, but terrible ending. This woman made everything okedoke at the end by going back to her wimpy self, not speaking her mind, not standing up for herself. To make her man happy, she needed to endure abusive, demeaning comments from the man they were trying to get a contract with. She apologizes to him, goes to her man, he finds out she wimped out but got the contract, and he liked her again. No apology from the boyfriend. Bad Christmas movie. Bad. Not to mention appearing to leave out important parts.