Boston's Not to Busy for Christmas
Gabby Messinger (Rachel Boston - A Rose for Christmas) is a guardian angel whose love of romance often sees her bending the rules to play matchmaker, despite being warned by Angel Michael DAngelo (Beau Bridges - Flight of the Reindeer). It is Michael who sends her on her next mission to the community of Angel Falls which since the mill closed down has lost its Christmas spirit. Now the town no longer celebrates with the Christmas pageant and potluck cancelled whilst the shop owners often employ someone to do the Christmas decorating of their shops rather than do it themselves. Having got a job working at the church Gabby befriends Jack Avery (Paul Greene - A Wish for Christmas), a volunteer fireman, handyman and owner of a hardware store. The lack of Christmas spirit doesn't deter Gabby who enlists Jack's help in repairing the community centre so the pageant can be put back on. But working with Jack causes Gabby to feel conflict especially when she succeeds in doing what her mission was.
"Christmas in Angel Falls" is one of those Hallmark Christmas movies which has two missions; one to entertain and one to remind us that Christmas is meant to be special. As such in many ways the town of Angel Falls is meant to represent your average town where life has gotten in the way of community, with some people lonely, others lacking the festive spirit, some seeing Christmas as a burden and lots of other things. But at the same time we have some who remember what Christmas was once like in the town with the whole community having gotten together to celebrate. And whilst the town I live in never really went to town celebrating Christmas it did remind me what it once did more than it does now and how a lot of the community got involved in celebrating Christmas. And to be honest this made me think how life has gotten in the way of myself celebrating Christmas.
But there is more to "Christmas in Angel Falls" than being a parable for modern times as there is the entertainment side which has two parts. One part is that classic Hallmark romance as Gabby finds herself falling for Jack, your traditional Hallmark community nice guy, which of course means that when the mission is complete you have to wonder what will happen. But this is a movie of little mysteries as we have the sweet little lady who lost her husband a while back, the nursery owner who won't help the church and of course Jack himself as Gabby senses that there is some thing in his past which still troubles him. And there is just enough mystery to all this to allow you to try and connect the dots whilst keeping you watching to see if you are right.
What "Christmas in Angel Falls" also has is two bits of perfect casting with Rachel Boston smiling and bubbling her way through the movie in such a way you believe that she is so alive and so full of belief, love and everything else that just her spirit of optimism will succeed. At the same time you have Paul Greene who delivers that town nice guy role perfectly but with that perfect layer of mystery which makes him interesting and to sound cliche, a little damaged.
What this all boils down to is that "Christmas in Angel Falls" is an above average Hallmark movie which whilst delivering a familiar romantic element it also has mystery whilst working almost as a parable to remind us about how special Christmas is meant to be.
Tags: TV Christmas Movies, Christmas Movies