Movie Review :: Hallmark Channel’s The More the Merrier

Hallmark Channel

Hallmark’s ‘Merry Thanksgiving’ weekend continues with a movie set in a small community hospital that becomes snowbound, but also becomes a bit of a magical holiday haven with several ‘Christmas miracles’.

Dr. Alice Rogers (Rachel Boston), an emergency room doctor at a small, rural hospital, always volunteers to work the Christmas Eve overnight shift and goes the extra mile to make the holiday merry and bright for patients and staff. When the hospital gets snowed in, Alice and Dr. Brian Davis (Brendan Penny), the newly hired top-rated cardiologist, find themselves in the middle of a bona fide baby boom when three women — including the only OBGYN for miles around — go into labor on the rarest birthday of the year. As they team up to bring these bundles of joy into the world as the night wears on, Alice, Brian and the rest of the staff also work hard to make the holiday feel festive for all the patients. Though they may have different approaches to medicine — and to life — there’s a spark between them and by the end of their shift it’s clear that this may be the Christmas Eve that changes them both forever.

The More the Merrier is almost an atypical type of Hallmark Christmas movie because this one is more about what it means to be part of a community rather than sparks of love flying between the two lead characters. Yes, there is some possible romantic interest between the two doctors, perhaps because of being thrown into such a high pressure situation, but that is never really the focus of the story. Which is refreshing and it would be nice if someone at Hallmark would have the courage to not force the leads to engage in an awkward kiss before the credits roll. Honestly, does everyone who watches Hallmark movies only tune in for that final kiss? Can’t the leads just be friends for a minute before locking lips? That forced romance just serves to undermine what is actually a pretty deep story. Alice has been at the hospital for about a year-and-a-half, but she seems to have a self-imposed rule that she only spends a short time in one place before moving on, seeing it as she is in the right place when she’s needed and then she moves on (wait … is Dr. Rogers actually the joyful Mrs. Miracle?). That need of hers comes into play when she discovers she has four (or five) offers to join other hospitals, her feeling of accomplishing what she was put in this community hospital for coming to a head as not one, not two, but three expectant mothers suddenly need some assistance and their babies are ready to be born. Alice’s whole purpose seems to come into focus as the hospital’s OBGYN is the first to go into labor, putting Rachel at the forefront of delivering her baby, as well as all the others. But she also has another purpose, and that is to show newcomer Dr. Davis that if he’s going to take a step down from his usual big city, high pressure hospital then he has to learn how to communicate with the people of the community, because it’s small enough that everyone knows everyone else, and no one wants to spend Christmas in the hospital. Alice notices right off the bat that Brian seems to have a problem talking to the children he has to deal with, from a young heart patient to a boy who fell and hit his head. Brian keeps asking the adult with them how the child is feeling, and Alice (as well as a former nurse at the hospital whose grandson is the heart patient) have to remind him that the patient it right there so talk to them (his heart patients are usually over 40). The whole night is also complicated for him by the fact that his sister is the OBGYN, but she does not want her brother watching her give birth. So with everything going on, both Alice and Brian learn what it means to be part of a community, which makes Alice’s decision of what to do next even more difficult. Do the two have a bit of a flirtation going on as well? More so on Brian’s side than Alice’s because, as she keeps reminding him, she’s leaving after the new year (and the fact that he blurted her secret out to his sister only puts up a wall between him and Alice). And he seems to accept it. But when Alice realizes what she has in the here and now, it’s Brian who ended up showing her that perhaps it is time to put down some roots and she thanks him in the sweetest way possible, with a peck on the cheek. That was all this movie needed. It could have ended right there with the two comfortable with their choices, but no, a few more lines of dialogue and Alice has to move in for a real lips-to-lips kiss. For no good reason except to satisfy the formula these movies follow. Not every movie needs to end with a kiss if it isn’t truly earned. These two people just met and barely know each other. That kiss was totally unnecessary.

Hallmark Channel

While the story does build a nice group of characters in the hospital (and I have to give credit for the writers actually including the title of the movie in one line of dialogue, not something you usually hear), there are some side stories that also play out. One concerns a couple who run a cozy coffee shop, who are about to become adoptive parents, thinking they have a couple of weeks before the big day. While they are preparing for a holiday event doing some after hours cooking, their shop gets a few visitors including an older man who offers to plow the snow for them (the story is set in the middle of a major snowstorm), and a young woman who unexpectedly goes into labor at her farm where she is alone, making her way as far as the coffee shop. The older gentleman had also been at her farm to buy a Christmas tree but since it was Christmas Eve, she gave him the tree and asked him to pay it forward (she also gave Alice some wreath scraps to decorate the hospital). The expectant couple may be in for a major shock when the expectant mother arrives and there are no ambulances to get her to the hospital. Guess who rides in to save the day! Another story may be a bit controversial for its corporate product placement by Abbott, a medical devices and pharmaceutical company. Every time the boy with the heart condition, David, is in a scene, you can almost hear a voice say ‘Sponsored by Abbott’, and everyone is overly-enthusiastic about a program Abbott has called HeartMates, which brings together various patients through video calls and group get-togethers to give them a sense of community. It seems to be a good cause, but the sponsorship is just a bit too in-your-face. And somehow this whole HeartMates thing also managed to shoehorn in an appearance by Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin, who is an ambassador for the program after experiencing his own heart issues, which sort of sets this movie in the same filmic universe as Holiday Touchdown: A Bills Love Story. It makes one wonder if Abbott approached Hallmark and asked them to create a movie in which they could be included. Luckily, the whole story about what it means to be part of a community really resonates in today’s world where we find ourselves so disconnected from others, many only communicating through social media, many of us not even really knowing our neighbors.

The cast is uniformly excellent. Rachel Boston brings a genuine warmth to her role as Alice. She rarely lets anything darken her day, and she want to make sure the hospital is as joyous and warm and welcoming for anyone unfortunate enough to be stuck there on Christmas. You know she genuinely cares for each and every person who walks through those doors, employee or civilian, and she knows everyone’s names and stories. She also does a nice job with Alice’s deflections whenever Brian tries to get to know her better … and I swear that Alice really is Mrs. Miracle. But Boston just brings a presence to the role that makes you want to get to know Alice better, so she is always a joy to watch. Brendan Penny is also wonderful as Brian, coming in a bit hot from the big city, quickly taken down a peg or two as he has to adjust to the slower pace and genuine sense of camaraderie in the hospital and the community at large. Every person who walks in those doors that night knows everyone else, and Penny shows how all of that really begins to affect Brian subtly as the story progresses. He’s also given his own backstory as he reveals he is a cardiologist with cardio issues, so that finally allows him to bond with young David while it reveals to Alice why exactly he took such a huge step down from a big city hospital to a small community facility. He makes his feelings for Alice feel authentic as she sparks this new understanding of what it means to have real human feelings while being a medical professional, so it’s only natural he feels something for her in that moment. But he also handles it in stride when it really seems that perhaps they will end this day as good friends with the possibility of something romantic down the road.

The movie has a very large cast and everyone really plays on that sense of community, truly feeling that they are genuinely interconnected. Marlie Collins as Brian’s sister, Dr. Natalie Spencer, does a nice job with some of her funnier moments, while also making us feel such empathy with the character as she goes into labor but her husband is stuck at an airport because of the snowstorm. She also has a great relationship with Penny, so their sibling bond feels real. Iris Quinn, as former nurse Ruth, is also terrific as her character almost become the conscience of Alice, Brian and others, always there with kind, supportive and wise words to help guide others with their decisions. Cardi Wong is also sweet as nurse Rich, sort of in the same boat as Alice, which allows them to understand each other a bit more, both always volunteering for the Christmas Eve shift because they have no one else in the lives. But Wong makes Rich exceedingly genial, always trying to put a smile on someone’s face, and really stepping up to take care of the kids who are stuck in the hospital as visitors. Everyone is just so good, including Cai Holm as young mom-to-be Zoe; Carey Feehan and Donna Benedicto as Max and Samantha Cameron, the adoptive parents-to-be; Jerry Wasserman as Jake, the man with the snow plow who is spreading his generosity to everyone in need; and Carmel Amit as another mom-to-be, Elena, who initially brought her son and daughter to the hospital after son Charlie bumped his head, but ended up going into labor sooner than expected. There is also a really sweet scene between Charlie and David (Joshua Black), where Charlie apologizes for not checking up on David after his operation. David assures him it’s okay because it wasn’t like they were the closest of friends, but the boys to find some common ground that bonds them and by the end they are the best of friends.

And that really is the whole message of this movie. It’s not really about the romance — it shouldn’t be about the romance — because it’s mentioned many times that this is a story about community, about being one with your community, about having bonds with your community, and checking up on others in your community, just having genuine human connections with people in your community. It’s a message we all need to take to heart during this holiday season in this fractured world we live in.

The More the Merrier has a run time of 1 hour 24 minutes, is rated TV G, and is streaming on Hallmark+.

Preview – The More the Merrier