Lifetime
Lifetime is winding down its ‘It’s a Wonderful Lifetime’ series of movies with the penultimate entry for 2024, A Carpenter Christmas Romance, which poses the question: can two former flames with a contentious past rekindle a romance in the wake of more personal turmoil, a tragedy that befell their hometown, and interference from another possible love interest?
Sasha Pieterse stars as Andrea Metcalf, successful author of a series of romantic fantasy novels (think the Outlander series), whose latest and final novel in the series is about to be delivered to the publisher on Christmas Eve for release next year. There’s just one little problem — someone somewhere somehow has leaked the final page of the novel and fans are aghast that Andrea has killed off the hero whom they have grown to love and wanted to have a happily ever after with the story’s heroine. In the era of social media, the reaction is swift and vitriolic — fans are calling for a boycott of the novel and of Andrea herself, putting her future works in jeopardy of not selling. What’s a girl to do? Hide out far from the big city at her aunt’s country home for the holidays in the hopes that the furor will die down, while avoiding the internet and steadfastly refusing to change the ending because she wants it to feel authentic (in a fantasy novel, mind you).
Arriving at her aunt’s, oblivious to all of the lights being on even though auntie is away for the holiday, Andrea begins to make herself at home when she hears someone coming in the front door. Grabbing a pan to defend herself, she is confronted by a shirtless hunk raiding the refrigerator. Both startled that someone else is there, Andrea recognizes the beefcake as Seth Ferguson (Mitchell Slaggert), her long ago ex-boyfriend, and he recognizes her as Andi … but she insists on being called Andrea because she’s all grown up now. Seth was allowed to use the aunt’s barn as a workshop while the town continues to rebuild from a tragic fire that wiped out about half of it, including the Ferguson’s inn and many residential homes. The two keep things on a friendly level, but that becomes complicated as Seth is also the handyman Andrea has to call if she needs help at the house. Andi slowly learns that Seth has been giving back to the town selflessly, allowing homeless families to stay on his family property while they rebuild their homes. As their own relationship begins to smolder, one of the women staying on the property, Aiko (Asia King), interrupts what Andi thinks is a date at the diner but Seth makes it clear the two are just friends (it was their first real sit-down after all). But Andi gets over herself and they continue to get closer until Aiko shows up again in an agitated state, saying she needs Seth … and that pushes all of Andi’s buttons. Is she being played? And why is she taking this so seriously if she’s going back to her home after the holidays? Feeling that things are over and done with for good, Andrea is confronted by Aiko who explains the nature of her relationship with Seth (and Seth already explained some of it to her) and Seth’s relationship with the town of Wildwood. Seth then also bares his soul about a weight he’s been carrying since the fire, but is it all enough to make Andrea think twice about her feelings and try again?
A Carpenter Christmas Romance has one of the more complicated plots we’ve come across in a Lifetime drama, with so many layers of story involving Andrea, her career, her life in Wildwood when she was younger, Seth and the weight he carries, and the whole tragedy of the town that really informs the story as much as Andrea’s own potential mistake that could burn down her entire career. The story certainly takes its time laying all of these things out for the audience to digest, but it also feels like it may never end … not a good thing for a movie that runs about 90 minutes without commercial. But it still plays out in a logical and natural way, and the two leads certainly are not hard to look at for that time. The story even surprises with the reveal of Seth’s ‘secret’, the burden he carries that he doesn’t think anyone in town except his father knows about (apparently they do), which gives his do-gooder character a bit more depth. It actually is a decent story with a satisfying conclusion, it just feels much longer than it is.
Lifetime
Pieterse is very good as Andrea, even if she gives the impression that she’s quite full of herself. This allows her to show Andrea breaking down her walls regarding her past hurt with Seth as a self-centered teenager, now seeing him as a responsible, selfless, caring adult. Those walls quickly go up again with the Aiko situation, but with some prodding from her sister, Andrea does allow herself to be vulnerable to the point she even considers rewriting the end of her book. Slaggert is excellent as Seth, very genial around Andi, very attentive to Aiko’s two children, obviously attracted to Andi, obviously carrying a huge burden by trying to be everything to everyone, but never letting that burden overshadow his upbeat personality. He’s also very attractive — which doesn’t make it difficult to believe Andi or anyone else could fall for him — but he seems like a regular Joe, unaware of his good looks and rock hard body, a guy you could just hang with and have a good time. Pieterse and Slaggert also have obvious chemistry that heats up the screen, which makes their romance all the more believable.
The movie also has a very good supporting cast including Asia King as Aiko, never playing the role as if she is in love with Seth but giving just enough to make us wonder especially when she has her ‘episode’ and comes running into his arms while Andi is with him. Kaley McCormack plays Andrea’s sister Ella, Andi’s voice of reason when it comes to her career and romance with Seth; and Chris Gann as Seth’s father William, with just a few short scenes but the relationship he has with Slaggert feels like a true father-son relationship.
The screenplay by former Grey’s Anatomy star Sarah Drew does a great job in developing the characters and the story, slowly revealing the scope of the tragedy in Wildwood, allowing the audience to learn more at the same time Andrea does, giving us two characters that we can root for to fall in love again. Director Jake Helgren, who has tackled his fair share of holiday romance movies, eases through the story and gets some wonderful performances from the cast. It’s just a shame that it feels like it drags, otherwise this could have been a highly recommended movie. As it is, we can say it’s worth the watch if you have nothing else to do and want to settle in for a cold wintry night and watch two beautiful people fall in love, but it’s not something we’d say drop what you’re doing and watch it now.
A Carpenter Christmas Romance has a run time of 1 hour 30 minutes, and is rated TV-PG.
Official Trailer | A Carpenter Christmas Romance
Lifetime
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