Cracking Christmas
From an early age Lilly Jamison (Amy Acker - Dear Santa) was in love with ballet and gave her all to achieve her dream of becoming a professional ballet dancer. Making it into the New York Ballet, with the support of her sister Beth (Katherine Barrell) and niece Sadie (Sophia Lucia), she ends up in a relationship with lead dancer Mark (Sascha Radetsky). But on the night of Lilly's big break, having been picked to be lead dancer, devastating news reaches her that Beth has been killed in a car accident. It leads to Lilly returning home to bring up Sadie and turning her back on not only her dream of being a professional dancer but also on her relationship with Mark. But when it seems that Sadie has the ability to become a ballet dancer it brings her back in to touch with Mark as Sadie wins a part in a big production of The Nutcracker.
That synopsis for "A Nutcracker Christmas" doesn't really tell you what this movie is about although I reckon that most people can work that out for themselves. So to make it simple we have Lilly having to confront her past having turned her back on ballet and the man she loved sacrificing it to look after her orphaned niece. There are other reasons why she turned her back on ballet but it is basically Lilly dealing with not only seeing Mark again but getting involved in ballet again. Now truth be told whilst "A Nutcracker Christmas" entertained it never blew me away and that was down to the familiarity of the storyline of someone confronted by their past, a life they gave up on as well as the one they loved.
But as I said "A Nutcracker Christmas" entertained and it is a nicely produced Hallmark movie with many a ballet scene which I am sure will have those who love ballet entertained. The thing is that whilst it is sympathetically acted with Amy Acker delivering a strong but characterisation unless you watch because of a fondness for ballet what you have is pretty standard stuff.
What this all boils down to is that "A Nutcracker Christmas" is certainly an entertaining movie but for me the whole thing just felt pretty familiar and whilst I could appreciate the ballet scenes they didn't excite me in the same way I am sure they would those with an interest in ballet.
Tags: TV Christmas Movies, Christmas Movies