Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Believe in Christmas’ on Hallmark, In Which A Grinchy NYC Journalist Gets Wooed By A Christmas-Themed Small Town… And A Local Guy

Believe in Christmas is another Hallmark family-friendly romantic-comedy movie that’s premiering on the platform this holiday season as part of their Countdown To Christmas lineup. But it also tries to reassure viewers that it’s not just another predictable festive film by including self-awareness and tongue-in-cheek quips regarding the usual Hallmark tropes. Is the work of stars Meghan Ory, John Reardon, and Lindura enough to make this movie successfully stand out, or is it ultimately hindered by its attempts at meta plotlines and humor? Keep reading to find out!

BELIEVE IN CHRISTMAS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Beatrice Thompson (Meghan Ory) is a career-driven woman living in New York City. She drinks her coffee black and works through holidays, so you know she’s a hard nut to crack when it comes to holiday cheer. Beatrice grew up in the foster care system, so holidays have always been an especially difficult time for her. Luckily her childhood best friend, Emilia Rhodes (Lindura), has always been at her side, but instead of their usual staycation, they’re celebrating “Bestie Christmas” with a trip to Christmasland. Beatrice doesn’t want to go, but Emilia is very enthusiastic and convincing about the whole thing and eventually gets Beatrice on board by presenting this as an opportunity to complete her latest feel-good, life-affiriming work assignment.

So the two women travel to Christmasland, a Massachusetts town that was slowly but surely rebranded beginning 15 years ago to revolves around all things holiday cheer. Their car breaks down five minutes outside of town, which Emilia insists is just part of the experience. She’s sure that a handsome local man (maybe even a single dad) with a tow truck is about to pick them up and save the day, and she’s more or less right when Ethan Crane (John Reardon) happens to find them. He’s a local guy who has since moved to Boston to work as an engineer, but he’s planning on moving back to be closer to his mom, Carol (Cathy Jones), the owner of a B&B called The North Pole Inn. He gives them a ride to the inn with a puppy in the backseat to ensure ultimate small town Christmas cuteness and charm.

Once in Christmastown, Emilia throws herself into local festive activities and ends up hitting it off with a fellow visitor named Porter Bryant (Kevin Hanchard). His billionaire with a heart of gold and angelic singing voice act seems too good to be true, so she assumes he’s an actor Christmasland brought on to play a part. Meanwhile, Ethan shows Beatrice around town, gradually helping her get more into Christmas celebrations, while falling for each other in the process. But Beatrice starts to find the lines blurring between what is true about Christmastown and what’s a carefully crafted tourist attraction. Is this newfound connection between her and Ethan real, or is it all just a festive fantasy?

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Believe in Christmas indulges in the kind of Christmas movie references and attempts at spoofs like those seen in A Clüsterfünke Christmas or A Christmas Movie Christmas. There’s also Christmas Land, a 2015 Hallmark rom-com about a holiday loving small town that’s also called, you guessed it, Christmas Land.

Performance Worth Watching: Lindura is consistently endearing, entertaining, and energetic as supportive, Christmas-loving bestie Emilia.

Memorable Dialogue: With commentary like this, it’s almost as if Emilia knows she’s in a Hallmark Christmas movie:

“Ooh, I bet he’s a ruggedly handsome blue-collar knight in shining armor.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Probably wearing plaid. And with a whole head of amazingly manly hair. And the strong shoulders, the male leads always have the nicest shoulders.”

A Holiday Tradition: Christmastown offers a whole slate of activities and traditions for its residents and visitors including a town-wide snowball fight, carriage rides, a holiday bake-off, hot chocolate tasting, ice sculptures, snowman making contest, and eggnog tasting.

Does the Title Make Any Sense?: It’s a bit vague, but it seems like the point of the movie is to get Beatrice to, well, “believe in Christmas,” even the more fantastical parts, so I guess the title does make sense.

Our Take: Sometimes it’s nice to just shut off your brain and enjoy a schmaltzy, predictable Christmas movie, and it’s kind of hard to do that when Believe in Christmas keeps calling out Hallmark movie tropes and recreating them with a supposed twist. At first, it was funny, but it became so meta that the fun was slowly sucked out of the movie. Emilia, for example, had so much potential as a character, but they stifled her growth and personality by sticking her with Porter, who looked old enough to be her father and gave the vibe of a con man even when he was supposedly telling the truth. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Emilia, you can do better, girl!

Speaking of doing better, I thought that Beatrice also also better off without Ethan. Not only did their romance lack chemistry and spark but it’s built on a shaky foundation between two already fundamentally different people. Is Beatrice supposed to just leave her life and job in New York City so she can move to Christmastown with Ethan? Also, do they celebrate Christmas all year or is it just a winter thing? If it’s an all-year event, I know it wouldn’t take long for me to be sick of that place but hey, Beatrice is clearly made of sterner stuff.

Both Beatrice and Emilia clearly are mentally strong, because Christmasland seemed to borderline psychologically torture them as the film went on. The town was like this social experiment forcing them to question what’s real and who’s a paid actor or local plant, which seems like it wouldn’t make for a very fun vacation. I would’ve loved for Beatrice and Emilia to just go to the town and have a fun girls’ trip together because I thought their actresses, Meghan Ory and Lindura, had a great, natural chemistry. The same can’t be said about the main pairing, largely due to Hallmark Glen Powell’s (aka Ethan) lack of charisma, charm, or personality. It’s truly the women who are doing the heavy lifting in this movie, but sadly even they aren’t enough to save Believe in Christmas from itself.

Our Call: Believe in Christmas takes tongue-in-cheek to a whole other level, with a level of self-awareness that goes so far that it somehow swings back around to being cheesy and predictable. Sometimes meta is fun, but this is a bit much. SKIP IT.