Hallmark Channel
Hallmark’s ‘Unwrapping Christmas’ series comes to an end — and with it the ‘Christmas in July’ movies — with Unwrapping Christmas: Olivia’s Reunion which is centered around the last of the four friends who was rarely seen in any of the other three movies … and this one at least explains why that was.
As with the previous three movies, Unwrapping Christmas: Olivia’s Reunion is set during the lead-up to the annual St. Paul Christmas Gala, but before things begin to fall apart Olivia has to make a delivery of freshly wrapped gifts from their year-round gift wrap shop. Deliveries is not something they usually do, but this client had a lot of gifts and paid a lot of money so Olivia is more than happy to make the 90-minute drive up north to some lodge, leaving the others to handle things, including dog sitting her adorable — but mischievous — pooch, for a couple of hours. What could go wrong?
On the way to the address, Olivia’s GPS informs her that she’s arrived at her destination, but she’s at a store that has everything from household needs to groceries. She meets the owner, Jen, who tells her the GPS always points travelers to her address but she needs to just go up the road a bit further. Olivia arrives at the correct destination and when the door opens, she is shocked to see who is on the other side — her ex Ben. Awkward! While they are both shocked, Ben is more pleased than Olivia and he invites her in for a cup of coffee before she hits the road back to St. Paul. It’s pleasant enough until it isn’t, when the topic of their break-up gets things heated. Ben had a great job opportunity in New York and hoped Olivia would go with him, but she and her friends were just about to launch their business so she had to put herself before her relationship, leading to all kinds of hurt feelings and Ben’s mother assuming Olivia broke her son’s heart. Luckily, mom Candace and the rest of the family stopped to do some skiing before they went to meet up with Ben at the family cabin in the woods, and Olivia is ready to put this all behind her and head home. But a snowstorm has moved in and she finds that the roads behind the vintage wooden bridge are closed so she only has one option — return to the cabin and put up with Ben for the night.
It’s a rocky night but they manage to be cordial and the next day Olivia hopes to leave but the storm has continued, not only stranding her with Ben — and no food — but Ben’s family is also stuck at the ski lodge with all the amenities (they were supposed to pick up groceries for Christmas dinner on their way to the cabin). Olivia and Ben begin to get comfortable with each other, making no secret of either of them being single, and Ben gets a call from Jenny, who happens to be the Jen Olivia met at the store on the way in. Yes, Ben and Jenny have gone out a few times, and he was probably going to go out with her again during the holiday but right now she needs help because the radiators at her house are not working. Ben and Olivia trudge to the house, fix the heat (well, Olivia does but lets Ben take the credit), and Jen seems to pick up some vibes between Ben and Olivia. The story continues to drag on as Ben and Olivia begin to rekindle things and the roads continue to be impassable, but his family manages to arrive on Christmas Eve via Snow Cats provided by the ski lodge. Needless to say, Candace is shocked to see Olivia in the house instead of Jen, making the situation even more awkward because Olivia and Ben have actually hashed out their break-up and are in a good, possibly romantic, place. But will the family’s arrival throw a wrench into the works, and will Olivia ever get to the gala to participate in the Best in Bow contest?
Unwrapping Christmas: Olivia’s Reunion is another pleasant enough entry in this series of films, written by T. Booker James who also wrote the first entry, Unwrapping Christmas: Tina’s Miracle, which set up the whole premise that the gift wrap shop was sponsoring the gala and everything that could go wrong did … while the other two movies basically ignored the fact that they were in danger of losing the location for the gala. This one actually gets around that whole problem by taking Olivia out of the drama surrounding the gala, with only one brief mention that the mistletoe did not get delivered. The girls are going to have to fill Olivia in later on how Tina and her new beau saved the venue, and how Mia, her sister and her new beau saved everything else (all Lily had to worry about was selling tickets). It actually seems like Olivia had no hand in planning the gala at all, so taking her out of that story wasn’t so jarring … and now we know why we barely saw her in any of the other three movies except for the opening and at the gala (spoiler alert) when she came rushing in with Ben at the end of each movie. However, putting Olivia and Ben together, alone, for the bulk of the movie’s running time didn’t offer much in the way of obstacles to their relationship. Jen was clearly not going to be a threat, and by the time mom arrived, the two had already fallen back in love with each other and no awful things Candace could say would make Olivia question the relationship. When she is mouthing off, Ben finally puts her in her place, telling his mother that she manufactured the story about Olivia breaking his heart, that never came from him, and he was fully supportive of her staying to open her business. That’s all it took to make that Grinch’s heart grow three times that day and she quickly apologized to Olivia and welcomed her back to the family. And conveniently enough, there was another friend of the family with them so our girl Jen might have made an instant love connection at the family Christmas dinner (the snow kept her from going to be with her family). Everyone wins!
Hallmark Channel
Now, this may be extremely nitpicky but it’s something you just can’t overlook — the snow. In the first movie, it was pointed out that it was snowing constantly but there was never any snow on the sidewalks and roads, and quite often not even on the actors no matter how much was blowing in front of the camera (grassy areas had the usual art directed snow placed strategically on the ground). The second and third movies avoided showing much snowfall, but here the snow is a major plot point. It’s snowing FOR DAYS, yet the amount of snow outside the cabin never changes and even when Olivia tries to drive out of town, the road seems pretty darned clear (and keep in mind it’s snowing more where she is than in St. Paul) and the old wooden bridge does not seem to be in danger of collapsing under the weight of the snow. And there is even a laughable moment when Ben and Olivia exit the cabin and the snow on the steps is clearly soapy foam. Did they run out of the material they usually use to make snow piles? For a network that has built its brand on Christmas movies, you’d think by this point in time they’d have a better handle on how to make snow look realistic.
That being said, Cindy Busby and Jake Epstein, as Olivia and Ben, have a really nice rapport with each other and while it’s no secret they will end up together by the end, they make their obvious chemistry with each other feel real as they begin to realize they still really like each other. Neither performance feels forced, they have a nice banter, and it all just feels natural that they would fall back in love. Zoë Barrett-Wood is also very good as Jen in her few short scenes, showing her obvious attraction to Ben but also smart enough to see that there is something between him and Olivia, and she’s okay with that. It’s nice that she isn’t written in a way to bring conflict to the story. The conflict, in fact, comes from Ben’s mother, and Susan Hamann does a very good job of being the villain of the story. Her change of heart maybe comes a little too quickly but for a while it seems she may be the one who drives Olivia away … well, if she could drive away. The rest of the main cast shows up at the end but all do a good job of making the Halls feel like a real family, while Ashley Newbrough, Natalie Hall and Kathryn Davis get to have some fun moments sitting with Olivia’s doggie, with only Lily finally managing to get the destructive pooch to calm down with just the right Christmas song.
This whole ‘Unwrapping Christmas’ series of films have been just fine, nothing to write home about, but they gave each of the actresses their moments to shine, as well as the actors who played the love interests. Hallmark Channel usually produces new movies for ‘Christmas in July’ — in fact, Hotchka began reviewing the Hallmark movies with A Very Vermont Christmas last year — so it was a bit of a letdown that the network decided to run movies from the 2024 Hallmark+ catalog this year. Hopefully that means they will be pouring some money into the actual ‘Countdown to Christmas’ films which will be here before you know it.
Unwrapping Christmas: Olivia’s Reunion has a run time of 1 hour 24 minutes, and is rated TV-G. The film is streaming on Hallmark+.
Preview – Unwrapping Christmas: Olivia’s Reunion
Hallmark Channel