Ah, I thought this was gonna be the better-known 1998 Jonathan Taylor Thomas movie so, nice surprise, uh, kinda … Basically this is my third Christmas movie of the month and I really hope that ends the streak of disappointments, lol … I’m glad I got them out of the way first, I guess. This is just another Christmas TV movie by the numbers. It has its moments, it has Jack Palance … Ann Jillian is quite infectiously impish as the romantic interest. But nothing special.

It’s actually perilously close to a, “Dammit, man, you’re a doctor!” moment towards the end and when the doctor in question is the guy who brought the plane down in Airplane!, well, it’s harder to keep a straight face than it ever has been in TV melodrama. I kept waiting for the screen to dissolve and go into a flashback, lol. I think perhaps it might’ve been better if this had been the Jonathan Taylor Thomas movie afterall …

Yurk. You can’t help getting a little excited watching the opening credits of this movie – directed by Chazz Palminteri, a cast including Susan Sarandon, Alan Arkin, Robin Williams, Penelope Cruz, Palminteri himself; score by Alan Menken (the reason it caught my eye in the first place – but when they use that as a selling point on the DVD, I guess I really should’ve known what I was in for, lol), production design by Carol Spier and cinematography by Russell Carpenter. What on earth went wrong?

To be sure, its heart is definitely in the right place … but it’s such a backslapping affair and therapy-like, like a wannabe “Angels in America”. I can imagine the most appreciative audience being those who have already learned its lessons and just sit smug in the knowledge of how gosh darn “together” they are. I personally can’t understand anyone who would want to wallow in this kind of thing at this time of year. Even Alan Menken’s score is gloomily drab. It’s about the most miserable “seasonal” thing I’ve seen outside of the suicidal Christmas Day soaps, in fact. It really ain’t even all that Christmassy, to be honest.