Yet Another Special Night
I will be honest when I saw that "Christmas Miracle" is sometimes prefixed by the words "Thomas Kinkade presents" my hopes were not great. It is not that I have disliked the other Kinkade movies but they have been an acquired taste with their quiet storylines with religious under currents. Unfortunately "Christmas Miracle" is for me too quiet, too lacking in drama to really grab your attention let alone keep it so no matter how much heart there is in this story it kind of struggles.
Having separated Mary (Allison Hossack) is expecting her estranged husband Joe (Dan Payne) to come over on Christmas Eve to pick up their autistic son Matt (Valin Shinyei). But on the way to Mary's Joe ends up getting stuck when due to a snow storm a fallen tree blocks the road. Some others also end up stuck from a wealthy husband and wife who always argue to a recently married young couple who have problems as well as a vicar who has lost his faith and a driver who always dreamed of being a doctor but life's troubles have held him back. These 7 people take shelter in an abandoned church and a little while later Mary arrives and also gets stuck in the snow. As these 8 people take shelter they get to talking and airing their problems, seeking advice from each other.
So with "Christmas Miracle" we have familiar set up of people getting stranded in the snow but where as often it is just a couple of people who don't get on instead we have a group of strangers and each stranger or couple has a problem. It's not an exactly original set up as you know time spent together in isolation leads to their problems being aired and in some cases sorted. But it is also not the most exciting of movies as the drama is minimal; we have a minor car incident on the icy road, a woman who almost goes into a diabetic coma and, well there is one more moment of drama later on. But it is not really enthralling with to be honest too many characters to deal with leading to them ending up as cliches.
What this makes "Christmas Miracle" is a picture, a nice looking movie with an artistic quality with well constructed scenes but lacking in real depth and substance. Okay that's a bit wrong because we have all these peoples having their problems solved but without a lot of drama it struggles to be interesting.
What this all boils down to is that "Christmas Miracle" wants to be a touching Christmas movie about one special night where people with issues manage to solve some of their problems. But it sadly ends up surprisingly uninteresting and lethargic.
Tags: Christmas Movies
