Movie Review :: Hallmark’s A Very Vermont Christmas is holiday fluff

Hallmark Channel

It’s July so of course it’s time for Hallmark Channel’s ‘Christmas in July’ holiday programming, with new movies premiering every Saturday. This is the first Hallmark movie we’ve tackled but with Ryan McPartlin recently starring in the Lifetime movie Amish Affair, how could we resist another TV movie starring McPartlin? And with this Summer heatwave we have going, who doesn’t want to escape to the wintry climes of Vermont for a couple of hours?

A Very Vermont Christmas, probably the most bland title anyone could think of for this movie (the working title was Love is Brewing but I suppose Hallmark needed ‘Christmas’ in the title), centers around former professional skier Joy Keogh (Katie Leclerc), who gives up her career to return to Vermont and help run her late father’s microbrewery and bar. Her mother, Mary (Joanna Herrington), doesn’t want Katie to give up her dreams to try to sustain what seems to be a failing business, but Katie promised her dad she would do anything she could to keep the bar/brewery up and running for as long as she could. Of course, she has competition from Frosty’s, another local bar that only sells big-name beers and is run by her ex Greg (John Forest). He’s her ex because he apparently — or Katie believes — stabbed her dad ‘Mogul Joe’ in the back by becoming his competition. Enter Zac Chase (McPartlin), a major beer company rep who is in town on business. Frosty’s is in bed with Zac’s company, and this year Frosty’s is the host bar for an IPA competition. Zac literally bumps into Joy on the slopes, because he’s a terrible skier, but it’s a ‘meet-cute’ and the two feel a spark that begins to lead to a blossoming holiday romance. Joy decides to enter the competition, mainly to stick it to Greg since Frosty’s is going to pour the winning IPA for a week (his bar never pours IPAs), and she develops a new holiday blend with a secret ingredient. Unbeknownst to her, when asking Zac to try her three brews and decide which one is better, he can actually name all of the ingredients — he’s training to become a ‘cicerone’, the equivalent of a wine sommelier but for beer — including the one secret ingredient: pine. Sneaky Greg gets a copy of the recipe and inadvertently learns what the special ingredient is due to some loose lips and produces his own IPA with the beer company, and Joy immediately puts the blame on Zac since, as far as she knows, he is the only other person who knows the ingredient (she never once suspects her mother or bartender Kevin). So will this holiday romance be ruined? Is Zac the cad Joy now believes him to be? Will Zac put this all behind him and head to Colorado as planned? Will Greg be able to woo Joy back … and buy her struggling bar? This is a Hallmark movie. What do you think?

The Hallmark Channel has been pumping out pleasant, formulaic, romantic holiday TV movies for years now. They’ve become so popular that the network expanded to the ‘Christmas in July’ month of programming which will lead into the ‘Countdown to Christmas’ programming sooner than we’d like to think. These movies have a devoted fan base so they are basically ‘review-proof’. You’re either going to like them or dislike them. Hate would be much too harsh a word because there’s nothing really hate-able in a Hallmark movie. A Very Vermont Christmas is in that category. I honestly sat down and said, ‘I’ll give this movie fifteen minutes or until the first commercial break’, and an hour later I was still watching. Not because there was anything earth-shattering or innovative in the storytelling but because it just lulls you with its incessant pleasantness. The story is probably the same formula as most of the holiday romance movies the channel churns out, just with different names for the characters, a different setting, and with the addition of the beer competition as the plot device. There’s nothing over-the-top or egregiously offensive to your intelligence or anything calling out for the camp elements some of Lifetime’s movies — like Amish Affair — scream for. It’s just like a warm fuzzy blanket and a cup of hot chocolate, and even in the dead of Summer it’s comforting.

Hallmark Channel

What really makes this a winning production are the two leads. McPartlin is fine as a romantic lead, and here he doesn’t even have to take his shirt off. He’s stoic and stalwart, and he makes us believe Zac has basically fallen for Joy at first sight. He’s also very impressive as he rattles off the ingredients of the IPAs he’s tasting for Joy and, most importantly, he allows us to feel Zac’s heartbreak, and determination, when Joy turns on him. We need to root for him to be the good guy, especially when a little bit of script manipulation wants us to think that perhaps Zac might pull a fast one on Joy after he takes a picture of her in her office with the beer recipe conveniently hanging on a bulletin board next to her. It’s not often you get to see an actor in two such diametrically opposed roles in as many weeks, and McPartlin has really had a chance to show his range. He makes for a convincing, non-sinister, romantic lead.

Katie Leclerc is also very winning in the role of Joy. She gives the character such an air of sincerity that we root for her and Zac to find romance and take down Greg, but at the same time her role as written is a little maddening when the subject of who blabbed about the secret ingredient puts Zac in her crosshairs. Both Joy’s mother Mary and bartender Kevin know it was KEVIN who let the cat out of the bag when he told a customer at the bar — where Greg was also sitting as they both saw him and Mary quickly shushed Kevin — and neither of them fesses up, which would have taken away that tension (and shortened the movie’s running time, I suppose). That would be the biggest issue with the script, the manufactured drama. But Leclerc handles it well and in the end we still want to see Joy and Zac united once she comes to her senses. Both she and McPartlin have the chemistry to make the romance believable.

Joanna Herrington is fine as Joy’s mother Mary, John Forest is good as the weaselly Greg, and Ivan Cecil Walks is fine as Kevin even though you will have the urge to yell at him for the last quarter of the movie for not admitting what he did. Of the supporting characters, the stand-out has to be Jenna Lea Scott as ‘Liftie Lucy’, the woman who runs the town’s ski lift with a stern authoritarianism that’s a bit over-the-top, but at the same time you can’t help but chuckle thanks to the performance. The movie also benefits from some stunning snow-covered locations which aren’t Vermont — and also not Vancouver, surprise! — but the Wachusett Mountain Ski Area in Massachusetts (I’m today years old learning Massachusetts has a ski resort … and mountains). The town is beautifully decorated, and the slopes and snow-covered trees really put you in the wintry Christmas spirit. Everything about this TV movie just works, and you can’t be mad about any of it. It may be formulaic, but it’s a pleasant enough diversion with a good cast, good production values, no sex, no violence, nothing offensive, and enough holiday spirit to make you forget just how hot it is outside.

A Very Vermont Christmas has a run time of about 1 hour 28 minutes, and is rated TV-G.