Hallmark Channel
Hallmark’s third ‘Unwrapping Christmas’ movie, Unwrapping Christmas: Lily’s Destiny, continues the story of the four friends who opened a year-round gift wrapping shop, which is also sponsoring the annual holiday gala this year, but if you’ve been following this series, you knoe that all of the stories take place concurrently so each movie is working its way up to the gala, specifically the gift wrapping contest — the fisrt movie was focused on how the venue was in danger of being sold out from under the gala, and the second was about how all of the vendors were dropping out at the last minute, forcing both Tina and Mia to work frantically to pull it all together — and this one also revolves around Lily trying her darnedest to sell out the place … but when she isn’t doing that or going on dates, she’s just working at the store with the others and there is no hint of anything going wrong with the gala. Never a mention of Tina and Michael working to save the venue, nothing about Mia and Beau scrambling to get decorations and staff and a caterer, nope, we’re just supposed to forget all about that so we can focus on Lily’s journey.
Ashley Newbrough plays Lily, and she is the marketing genius of the group, always coming up with creative names for the particular gift wrap designs and planning events to bring more attention to the store — which has been in operation for eight years now so it should be pretty well-established in the community — and for the Young Entrepreneurs group at the local college, of which she, Tina, Mia and Olivia were members, and where they came up with the idea for the shop (although Lily will tell you it was her idea but she prefers to say it was a group effort to not ruffle any feathers). With the gala and a Young Entrepreneurs event on the calendar, not to mention Christmas being right around the corner, Lily still finds time to go on some dates, notably with local ‘celebrity’ realtor Owen Mansfield, whose face is plastered all over town on billboard and bus stops, making him impossible to get away from. While Lily and her intern Kenzie plan the events, Lily goes on a date with Owen and finds that he loves to talk about two things — business and himself, and he comes off a little snotty about Lily’s business because he doesn’t see it as a prestige thing like real estate. But she gives him a pass and goes on a second date, but she realizes there is zero spark between them (he, though, is oblivious, seeing them as the city’s new power couple).
While all of this is going on, Lily is giving an interview to the local paper about the business and the gala, and she feels an instant connection with the journalist, Sean, especially when they both realize they went to the same college at the same time and had one class together, briefly before Lily dropped it. Kismet! But as Lily begins to think maybe Sean is Mr. Right, she also sees signs that he may be married, and has a child. Kenzie is certain he isn’t married because nothing on his social media suggests him being anything but single, but Lily sees him greet a woman and child with her own eyes, and can see the affection he has for them so she puts that on the back burner. She still has hope and invites him to the Christmas cocktail party for the Young Entrepreneurs, but he doesn’t show, and when she goes to his office, a co-worker asks is she is ‘the missus’. But is this all just a case of miscommunication, mistaken identities and crossed wires? And on top of all this, Lily’s busy-body neighbor Whitney keeps harassing her to decorate her tree for the neighborhood’s annual Juniper Lane Festival of Lights, unaware that Lily just isn’t in the mood because her dad passed away less than a year ago, and decorating the tree was their thing. When Lily finally pulls herself together the day before the event, she finds that Whitney’s display has been accidentally destroyed and she has to make a decision — put the animosity aside and help Whitney after another neighbor, Frank, explains why Whitney is so high strung about this festival, or go into beast mode and get her tree decorated to put Whitney in her place (and as it turns out Lily and Whitney always go head-to-head in the Fastest Wrap portion of the contest at the gala, and poor Whitney always gets second place)? Can Lily find love and understanding for her neighbor in the spirit of Christmas? It’s a Hallmark movie, what do you think?
Hallmark Channel
Unwrapping Christmas: Lily’s Destiny is another pleasant, if unremarkable, entry in the ‘Unwrapping Christmas’ series of movies that first streamed on Hallmark+ last year, now getting wider exposure on the cable channel. If you’re following the films in order — and you kind of have to for the final scene at the gala to make sense — you’d expect there to be some continuity in the story, but really the only time the movies converge is at the gala. There really should have been some background business going on with Tina and Mia and the problems they were having getting the gala up and running, even if it was just one line, a simple mention that things were dicey but they were handling it. It’s nice to actually see more of the four friends here than we did in the second movie, but their casual conversations about Lily’s romantic life just feel like this story is happening at a completely different time (and who knows, perhaps it is taking place a week before the wheels began to fall off the gala, but we’re never given any clues about that, even though one of the writers was involved in the second film). It just doesn’t all mesh as well as the ‘Hearts Around the Table’ series of movies (which starred about the cast of the ‘Unwrapping Christmas’ series). Also missing from these films is a real spark of the holidays and real emotional journeys. Each one so far has had the miscommunications that try to tear apart the couple you know will be together by the end, so there are no surprises there. The most emotional moment of this series to date was probably at the Festival of Lights when Whitney discovered some ‘Christmas elves’ had decorated her space at the festival, and she and Lily finally had a chance to talk and share their stories and learn more about each other. Those scenes were really lovely and tugged at the heart. The rest was pleasant enough even if it was a bit frustrating that Lily wouldn’t ask Sean upfront if he was married. It’s all just a fine romantic movie but even with all of the trappings of Christmas, it just doesn’t have that Christmas spirit we expect from a Hallmark Christmas movie, no matter what time of the year it’s being aired.
The cast all do great work with what they’re given. Newbrough is always charming and can bring some real warmth and likability to her characters. She might be too kind to a fault, putting up with Owen longer than she should, but that’s the kind of person Lily is and Newbrough portrays her as strong, intelligent and kind-hearted, with the patience of a saint when it comes to her neighbor. Torrance Coombs is also good as Sean. The way he looks at Lily, it’s clear he feels a spark, he’s just written in a way that doesn’t allow him to express how he feels for plot device purposes. On the other hand there is Franco Lo Presti as Owen, vain, full of himself, even though he pretends to be interested in Lily’s work and activities, making a complete d-bag move by showing up at the cocktail party event when Lily asked him not to and basically taking it over (leading her to finally dump him). Perhaps there could have been a little more ‘who will she choose’ to the story if Owen wasn’t so awful, putting Lily in a triangle. As it stands, Coombs’ Sean is just utterly charming and Lo Presti’s Owen is a complete jerk … both actors portraying their characters perfectly, getting the job done.
Martina Ortiz Luis is fun as intern Kenzie, perhaps a little too familiar with her boss than an intern would be in real life, but her character serves the purpose of finally getting Lily and Sean to find some common ground. Jennifer Baker is really terrific as Whitney, at first that annoying neighbor anyone would go out of their way to avoid, later revealing she has her own deep personal issues that have made her this driven woman who steamrolls everyone without considering her actions. When she pours out her heart to Lily, you might just get a little extra moisture in your eyes thanks to Baker’s performance. Brian Froud’s Frank also serves a purpose similar to Kenzie’s, but helping Lily understand Whitney better rather than interfering in her love life. Everyone does a wonderful job with their performances, doing their best to breathe more life into the story.
Overall, Unwrapping Christmas: Lily’s Destiny is another pleasant chapter in the series, it just needed a bit more Christmas spirit.
Unwrapping Christmas: Lily’s Destiny has a run time of 1 hour 24 minutes, and is rated TV-G. The film is streaming on Hallmark+.
Preview – Unwrapping Christmas: Lily’s Destiny
Hallmark Channel