Tuesday, December 2, 2025
A Walk in the Woods (2015) [R] ***
A film review by James Berardinelli for ReelViews.net on Sept. 4, 2015.
A couple of old guys taking a walk on the Appalachian Trail - it doesn't sound like a winning motion picture formula and, as it turns out, it isn't. Like all road trip movies, the success (or lack thereof) of A Walk in the Woods relies heavily on the chemistry between the two leads, in this case Robert Redford and Nick Nolte. And, although both men do a reasonable job inhabiting their characters, as an odd couple, they don't click. There's something missing. Maybe if this had been made 20 years ago by Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon. Or even 10 years ago, as originally planned, with Redford and Paul Newman…
A Walk in the Woods is surprisingly funny at times but, like many comedies, it runs out of steam about halfway through. Some of the humor is unexpectedly lowbrow, at least insofar as anything with Redford could be considered lowbrow. The iconic actor generally takes the high road, leaving the crass comments and physical slapstick to Nolte. There are some clever, witty one-liners. I found myself laughing more than once or twice but the jokes, like the movie as a whole, lack staying power. The first half is significantly more enjoyable than the second.
The narrative is more concerned with the predictable mismatched buddies interaction between Redford's Bill Bryson and Nolte's Stephen Katz than it is with the terrain they're crossing. Last year's Wild, with Reese Witherspoon, did a better job illustrating the perils of traveling the more than 2100-mile wilderness path from Georgia to Maine. Here, things like bears, slips and falls, and bad weather serve as punchlines. Following the road movie formula, A Walk in the Woods is divided into clearly delineated episodes: being trapped in the company of the most annoying hiker to walk the earth, flirting with an attractive motel owner, etc. The film also has a message Yoda would disagree with: trying is what really matters.
Bryson, a renowned travelogue author, decides to walk the Appalachian Trail on a whim - perhaps it's a delayed mid-life crisis or maybe he's thinking of a bucket list. His wife, Catharine (Emma Thompson), won't let him make the hike alone. After sending out feelers to most of his old friends and striking out, he is forced to invite the only one with interest - a man he hasn't seen in decades and with whom he didn't part on the best of terms. By his own admission, Katz hasn't done much with his life, and is so out-of-shape, it looks like he might have trouble hiking for a mile, let alone 2100+ of them. Together, the codgers hop on a plane to Georgia and the odyssey begins.
The screenplay was loosely adapted from Bill Bryson's nonfiction book and is directed by Ken Kwapis, who has an extensive TV resume to go along with a few big screen titles (for example, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants). There are times when one gets the sense Kwapis wants to capture the majesty of the trail but, even though there are some spectacular mountain shots, the postcard moments don't last long enough to inspire awe. Added to that, there's an instance in which shoddy production design undermines a scene. With ceramic rocks and an awful matte painting in the background, this key sequence is so obviously studio-bound that it becomes a distraction.
Decades removed from being considered a heartthrob, Redford is still able to command the camera's attention with his innate charisma and likability. He's a good foil for Nolte's oafishness; it's surprising the two don't mesh better in an oil-and-water fashion. The lighthearted tone keeps A Walk in the Woods from becoming too dour and, in contrast with other wilderness adventure movies (like the aforementioned Wild and the similarly-titled Into the Wild), there's never a sense that Nature is more than a cantankerous prankster. The message about mortality is underplayed - older people may be spry of mind but their bodies often don't cooperate. Any bittersweet element this might have injected into the proceedings is quickly washed away by a jokey turn. The film adamantly rejects being serious for more than a passing moment. A Walk in the Woods is pleasant but inconsequential, a passing diversion rather than a worthy cinematic destination. (Berardinelli's rating: 2.5 stars out of 4)
Labels: adventure, biography, comedy, drama, Robert Redford
IMDb: 64/100
MetaScore (critics=51, viewers=57)
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=46, viewers=66)
Blu-ray
Berardinelli's original review
A Walk in the Woods is surprisingly funny at times but, like many comedies, it runs out of steam about halfway through. Some of the humor is unexpectedly lowbrow, at least insofar as anything with Redford could be considered lowbrow. The iconic actor generally takes the high road, leaving the crass comments and physical slapstick to Nolte. There are some clever, witty one-liners. I found myself laughing more than once or twice but the jokes, like the movie as a whole, lack staying power. The first half is significantly more enjoyable than the second.
The narrative is more concerned with the predictable mismatched buddies interaction between Redford's Bill Bryson and Nolte's Stephen Katz than it is with the terrain they're crossing. Last year's Wild, with Reese Witherspoon, did a better job illustrating the perils of traveling the more than 2100-mile wilderness path from Georgia to Maine. Here, things like bears, slips and falls, and bad weather serve as punchlines. Following the road movie formula, A Walk in the Woods is divided into clearly delineated episodes: being trapped in the company of the most annoying hiker to walk the earth, flirting with an attractive motel owner, etc. The film also has a message Yoda would disagree with: trying is what really matters.
Bryson, a renowned travelogue author, decides to walk the Appalachian Trail on a whim - perhaps it's a delayed mid-life crisis or maybe he's thinking of a bucket list. His wife, Catharine (Emma Thompson), won't let him make the hike alone. After sending out feelers to most of his old friends and striking out, he is forced to invite the only one with interest - a man he hasn't seen in decades and with whom he didn't part on the best of terms. By his own admission, Katz hasn't done much with his life, and is so out-of-shape, it looks like he might have trouble hiking for a mile, let alone 2100+ of them. Together, the codgers hop on a plane to Georgia and the odyssey begins.
The screenplay was loosely adapted from Bill Bryson's nonfiction book and is directed by Ken Kwapis, who has an extensive TV resume to go along with a few big screen titles (for example, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants). There are times when one gets the sense Kwapis wants to capture the majesty of the trail but, even though there are some spectacular mountain shots, the postcard moments don't last long enough to inspire awe. Added to that, there's an instance in which shoddy production design undermines a scene. With ceramic rocks and an awful matte painting in the background, this key sequence is so obviously studio-bound that it becomes a distraction.
Decades removed from being considered a heartthrob, Redford is still able to command the camera's attention with his innate charisma and likability. He's a good foil for Nolte's oafishness; it's surprising the two don't mesh better in an oil-and-water fashion. The lighthearted tone keeps A Walk in the Woods from becoming too dour and, in contrast with other wilderness adventure movies (like the aforementioned Wild and the similarly-titled Into the Wild), there's never a sense that Nature is more than a cantankerous prankster. The message about mortality is underplayed - older people may be spry of mind but their bodies often don't cooperate. Any bittersweet element this might have injected into the proceedings is quickly washed away by a jokey turn. The film adamantly rejects being serious for more than a passing moment. A Walk in the Woods is pleasant but inconsequential, a passing diversion rather than a worthy cinematic destination. (Berardinelli's rating: 2.5 stars out of 4)
Labels: adventure, biography, comedy, drama, Robert Redford
IMDb: 64/100
MetaScore (critics=51, viewers=57)
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=46, viewers=66)
Blu-ray
Berardinelli's original review
Friday, November 28, 2025
The Swimmer (1968) [PG] *****
A film review by Roger Ebert on July 2, 1968
The Swimmer is the story of a man who begins at the dawn of a new day to swim in the backyard pool of some friends. The water is cool and fresh, and the day is beautiful.
As he has a drink with his friends, it occurs to him that a string of other backyard pools reaches all the way across the valley to his own home. Why not swim every one — swim all the way home, as it were? This sounds like a glorious adventure, and indeed it starts but that way. He even meets a lovely girl who agrees to come along on the journey.
Some of the pool owners are happy to see him. Others hate him. One is a bitter young woman who loved him once. We learn something about this man’s life at every poolside, until finally we are able to piece together a story of his disgrace and failure.
The Swimmer begins as a perfectly realistic film. But somewhere along the way we realize it is an allegory, and the ending makes that clear. It is also a very stylized film. As the swimmer (Burt Lancaster) pauses beside each pool, his conversations with the owners sound real enough, and yet somehow they are very stiff, very correct, as if everybody were reading lines or this were a dream.
The photography contributes to this feeling. It is beautiful, but not joyful. It has the same nostalgia as Elvira Madigan or the snapshots in an old photo album. At every moment, we have the feeling that something tragic has already happened to these people we see smiling. And, of course, something has.
The Swimmer is based on a John Cheever story from the New Yorker, and it’s the sort of allegory the New Yorker favors. Like assorted characters by John Updike and J.D. Salinger, Cheever’s swimmer is a tragic hero disguised as an upper-class suburbanite. There are a lot of tragic heroes hidden in suburbia, I guess, perhaps because so many of them subscribe to the New Yorker. You are what you read.
One interesting thing about The Swimmer is that it manages so successfully to reproduce the feeling of a short story in the medium of film. It is a very literary movie, and by that I don’t mean the characters stand around talking to each other a lot. The film episodes are put together in a rather formal way, like a well-made short story, and there is none of the fluid movement between scenes that you usually expect in movies.
The movement of the film is from morning to dusk, from sunshine to rain, from youth to age and from fantasy to truth. It would also appear that the swimmer’s experiences are not meant to represent a single day, but a man’s life.
What we really have here, then, is a sophisticated retelling of the oldest literary form of all: the epic. A hero sets off on a journey. He has many strange adventures along the way, during which he learns the tragic nature of life. At last he arrives at his goal, older and wiser and with many a tale to tell. The journey Cheever’s swimmer makes has been made before in other times and lands by Ulysses, Don Quixote, Huckleberry Finn and Augie March.
Burt Lancaster is superb in his finest performance. In addition to being a fine actor, he is a plausible hero of the Charlton Heston and Kirk Douglas type. And a hero is needed here. We must believe in the swimmer’s greatness if we are to find his fate tragic.
There are also fine performances by Janice Rule (previously buried in Matt Helms and Westerns) as the mistress, by Janet Landgard, as the young girl, and by a host of character actors. The screenplay and direction are by Eleanor Perry and Frank Perry, respectively, and they are the same couple who made David and Lisa. Like that film, The Swimmer, is a strange, stylized work, a brilliant and disturbing one. (Roger Ebert's rating: 4 stars out of 4)
Trivia: Burt Lancaster always insisted this was his best and his favorite film of his career.
Although Frank Perry is credited as the director because of contractual reasons, he was fired by prducer Sam Spiegel over creative differences, after the first rough cut. Sydney Pollack took over and reshot a number of scenes, which contributed to the delay between filming in June, 1966 and the May, 1968 New York premiere.
Filming locations. The film was shot at a number of private homes in Fairfield, Stamford, Weston, Westport, and Wilton Connecticut.
Labels: drama
Internet Movie Database: 76/100
RottenTomatoes (critics=100%, viewers=83%)
Blu-ray (2014 release)
Blu-ray (2021 deluxe editon)
Blu-ray review by Brian Orndorf, March 24, 2014
Roger Ebert's original review
As he has a drink with his friends, it occurs to him that a string of other backyard pools reaches all the way across the valley to his own home. Why not swim every one — swim all the way home, as it were? This sounds like a glorious adventure, and indeed it starts but that way. He even meets a lovely girl who agrees to come along on the journey.
Some of the pool owners are happy to see him. Others hate him. One is a bitter young woman who loved him once. We learn something about this man’s life at every poolside, until finally we are able to piece together a story of his disgrace and failure.
The Swimmer begins as a perfectly realistic film. But somewhere along the way we realize it is an allegory, and the ending makes that clear. It is also a very stylized film. As the swimmer (Burt Lancaster) pauses beside each pool, his conversations with the owners sound real enough, and yet somehow they are very stiff, very correct, as if everybody were reading lines or this were a dream.
The photography contributes to this feeling. It is beautiful, but not joyful. It has the same nostalgia as Elvira Madigan or the snapshots in an old photo album. At every moment, we have the feeling that something tragic has already happened to these people we see smiling. And, of course, something has.
The Swimmer is based on a John Cheever story from the New Yorker, and it’s the sort of allegory the New Yorker favors. Like assorted characters by John Updike and J.D. Salinger, Cheever’s swimmer is a tragic hero disguised as an upper-class suburbanite. There are a lot of tragic heroes hidden in suburbia, I guess, perhaps because so many of them subscribe to the New Yorker. You are what you read.
One interesting thing about The Swimmer is that it manages so successfully to reproduce the feeling of a short story in the medium of film. It is a very literary movie, and by that I don’t mean the characters stand around talking to each other a lot. The film episodes are put together in a rather formal way, like a well-made short story, and there is none of the fluid movement between scenes that you usually expect in movies.
The movement of the film is from morning to dusk, from sunshine to rain, from youth to age and from fantasy to truth. It would also appear that the swimmer’s experiences are not meant to represent a single day, but a man’s life.
What we really have here, then, is a sophisticated retelling of the oldest literary form of all: the epic. A hero sets off on a journey. He has many strange adventures along the way, during which he learns the tragic nature of life. At last he arrives at his goal, older and wiser and with many a tale to tell. The journey Cheever’s swimmer makes has been made before in other times and lands by Ulysses, Don Quixote, Huckleberry Finn and Augie March.
Burt Lancaster is superb in his finest performance. In addition to being a fine actor, he is a plausible hero of the Charlton Heston and Kirk Douglas type. And a hero is needed here. We must believe in the swimmer’s greatness if we are to find his fate tragic.
There are also fine performances by Janice Rule (previously buried in Matt Helms and Westerns) as the mistress, by Janet Landgard, as the young girl, and by a host of character actors. The screenplay and direction are by Eleanor Perry and Frank Perry, respectively, and they are the same couple who made David and Lisa. Like that film, The Swimmer, is a strange, stylized work, a brilliant and disturbing one. (Roger Ebert's rating: 4 stars out of 4)
Trivia: Burt Lancaster always insisted this was his best and his favorite film of his career.
Although Frank Perry is credited as the director because of contractual reasons, he was fired by prducer Sam Spiegel over creative differences, after the first rough cut. Sydney Pollack took over and reshot a number of scenes, which contributed to the delay between filming in June, 1966 and the May, 1968 New York premiere.
Filming locations. The film was shot at a number of private homes in Fairfield, Stamford, Weston, Westport, and Wilton Connecticut.
Labels: drama
Internet Movie Database: 76/100
RottenTomatoes (critics=100%, viewers=83%)
Blu-ray (2014 release)
Blu-ray (2021 deluxe editon)
Blu-ray review by Brian Orndorf, March 24, 2014
Roger Ebert's original review
Inside Daisy Clover (1965) [PG] ***
A film review by Randy Miller III for blu-ray.com on July 4, 2020.
Movies about Hollywood's dark underbelly were nothing new by 1965, but Inside Daisy Clover explores the subject through a young woman who's quite literally pulled off the streets to be the next big thing. Former child star Natalie Wood portrays Daisy Clover, who lives with her mom near the Santa Monica Pier and may just be the least convincing 15-year-old ever portrayed on film. She ekes out a living selling fake autographs but loves singing, and is surprised to learn that the head of a major studio, Raymond Swan (Christopher Plummer), is interested in a demo record she sent. After a limo ride to Swan Studios, the young tomboy is caught off guard by his cold and uncaring demeanor: Raymond tears her down while promising to deliver Hollywood's new rising star to the unsuspecting masses. She's charmed by fellow studio actor Wade Lewis (Robert Redford) and they develop a whirlwind romance, which ends up doubling as a microcosm of her brief time in the spotlight: it's very exciting, a little scary, and doesn't end well.
It sounds compelling enough on paper, but Inside Daisy Clover is a clear case of a film whose execution doesn't quite measure up to its ambition. Very little seems wrong at first glance: Wood acquits herself nicely (except for that age discrepancy -- though still youthful, she was close to thirty during production), there are a number of genuine twists and turns, and the supporting performances by Plummer and Redford are great. Other small parts, such as Raymond's wife Melora (Katharine Bard) and Daisy's soon-to-be-estranged mother Lucile (Ruth Gordon) are filled out nicely too. The biggest problems lie with Inside Daisy Clover's structure and a lack of ability to sell its own material: Wood's character is never all that convincing as the next big thing, nor is her rise to fame ever shown from a public perspective. The extremely insular nature of her journey ends up working against it, keeping outsiders at arm's length while never making a believable sales pitch. Even Daisy's trademark song, which is repeated ad nauseum, is forgettable... and to make matters worse, all of Wood's original vocals were re-recorded by singer Jackie Robin Ward.
Of course, that's not to say that Inside Daisy Clover is without merit... even aside from a few highlights mentioned above, most of which are related to the lead and supporting performances. Any and all scenes between Wood and Redford are easily among the film's best, as they seem to best capture that perfect balance of excitement mixed with a little bit of uneasiness. André Previn's original score and Charles Lang's cinematography are both excellent, often working double duty to capture the atmosphere of 1930s Santa Monica and the surrounding area. For these reasons, the film also serves as an invaluable time capsule: even though many parts are made up to reflect that earlier decade in which Inside Daisy Clover takes place, there's an undeniable charm to the signage, store fronts, and much quieter atmosphere that seem to evoke the 1960s as well. Those with Californian roots may enjoy the film for that reason alone. But aside from die-hard fans of the cast and setting, this one's tough to recommend sight unseen.
Labels: drama, music, Robert Redford, romance
IMDb 61/100
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=31, viewers=68)
Blu-ray
It sounds compelling enough on paper, but Inside Daisy Clover is a clear case of a film whose execution doesn't quite measure up to its ambition. Very little seems wrong at first glance: Wood acquits herself nicely (except for that age discrepancy -- though still youthful, she was close to thirty during production), there are a number of genuine twists and turns, and the supporting performances by Plummer and Redford are great. Other small parts, such as Raymond's wife Melora (Katharine Bard) and Daisy's soon-to-be-estranged mother Lucile (Ruth Gordon) are filled out nicely too. The biggest problems lie with Inside Daisy Clover's structure and a lack of ability to sell its own material: Wood's character is never all that convincing as the next big thing, nor is her rise to fame ever shown from a public perspective. The extremely insular nature of her journey ends up working against it, keeping outsiders at arm's length while never making a believable sales pitch. Even Daisy's trademark song, which is repeated ad nauseum, is forgettable... and to make matters worse, all of Wood's original vocals were re-recorded by singer Jackie Robin Ward.
Of course, that's not to say that Inside Daisy Clover is without merit... even aside from a few highlights mentioned above, most of which are related to the lead and supporting performances. Any and all scenes between Wood and Redford are easily among the film's best, as they seem to best capture that perfect balance of excitement mixed with a little bit of uneasiness. André Previn's original score and Charles Lang's cinematography are both excellent, often working double duty to capture the atmosphere of 1930s Santa Monica and the surrounding area. For these reasons, the film also serves as an invaluable time capsule: even though many parts are made up to reflect that earlier decade in which Inside Daisy Clover takes place, there's an undeniable charm to the signage, store fronts, and much quieter atmosphere that seem to evoke the 1960s as well. Those with Californian roots may enjoy the film for that reason alone. But aside from die-hard fans of the cast and setting, this one's tough to recommend sight unseen.
Labels: drama, music, Robert Redford, romance
IMDb 61/100
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=31, viewers=68)
Blu-ray
Saturday, November 15, 2025
A Man and a Woman ( Un homme et une femme) (1966) [NR] ****/*****
He had just finished making Les Grands Moments and could not show the film because he did not have a distributor. He was broke and his film company was close to bankruptcy. So he did what he often did, which was to get in his car and drive to the beach - from Paris to Deauville on the Normandy coast. He arrived around 2 am, slept in his car and awoke around 6:30 am to see a woman walking on the beach with a child and a dog.
In that moment he had the inspiration for the film A Man and a Woman. Over the next four weeks he wrote the screenplay, having in mind Jean-Louis Trintignant to play Jean-Louis Duroc. When he showed the screenplay to Jean-Louis, he said yes immediately. Then Lelouch said that he had both Romy Schneider and Anouk Aimee (Anouk Aimée) in mind to play Anne Gauthier, and he asked Jean-Louis who his dream woman would be. Jean-Louis said he knew Anouk very well and Claude should just call her up. At first there was a little difficulty because Anouk did not like boats, so she did not want to do the boat scenes, but she finally gave in.
Lelouch shot the film over a period of four weeks, using a rented hand-held camera, and edited it in three weeks. He had intended to shoot it all in black and white because he could not afford color, but an American distributor bought the rights in the U.S. so Lelouch was able to shoot the exteriors in color and the interiors in black and white.
There are some interesting aspects to Lelouch's filmmaking style, particularly A Man and a Woman. He had a screenplay but did not let the actors read the dialogue. He described the scene beforehand, and if there was a particular sentence he wanted said, he would mention that, but, other than that, he let the actors improvise. Also, what he told Jean-Louis was not the same thing he told Anouk. He never rehearsed because he believed that after the first or second take, the spontaneity would be gone. Also, Lelouch did all the filming himself because it eliminated the natural time delay in telling the cinematographer what he wanted.
Sometimes he would play Francis Lai's score for the actors before the scene, especially if he couldn't find the right words to say to direct them. Also, after the scene was finished he would play the dialogue back for the actors so they could all get a feeling for how it was going.
Lelouch said that he was fascinated by people, that the human interraction was the important thing, and that was why he tried to shoot the film in real time, without rehearsals and very few takes. At some point the actors were living the story, which made the film as close to the truth as possible.
Interestingly, the rented camera was not soundproofed, so they would wrap it in a blanket for close-ups, but relied a lot on distance shots using a telephoto lens. This is why the film has the look that it does.
So, what about the story? Anne was a film script girl who met and married her husband Pierre (Pierre Barouh) on a project in which he was working as a stunt man. They had a child, a little girl named Françoise, and then Pierre was killed while filming a battlefield scene in a WWII film. To be able to continue working, Anne enrolled her little girl in a boarding school in Deauville.
Jean-Louis was a race car test driver for Ford, testing the new GT40 LeMans car and the Ford Formula 1 car. In a flashback we see him racing at LeMans, being involved in a horrific accident, undergoing a three-hour operation and then having his grief-stricken wife Valerie (Valerie Lagrange) take her own life at the hospital. And so, after that, Jean-Louis put his young son Antoine in the same Deauville boarding school. And Anne and Jean-Louis eventually meet at the boarding school when she misses her train back to Paris and the school headmistress (Simone Paris) introduces them.
It really is a very simple love story, the main complication being that Anne was very much in love with her husband Pierre, and, even though he had died, he was still alive for her. So she could not be present while she and Jean-Louis were making love in their Deauville hotel room, and even at the end of the film, we are not sure if she will be able to move forward.
In an interesting footnote, the film was shot between November, 1965 and January, 1966. Anouk Aimee and Pierre Barouh fell in love during filming, married three months later, on April 20, 1966, and divorced three years later, on March 17, 1969.
For myself, this is almost a coming-of-age film. I was born in 1942, spent time in Paris in the summer of 1965, just before this was filmed, and appreciate the honesty and integrity with which the film was made.
Labels: drama, romance, Paris, Sixties
IMDb 75/100
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=75, viewers=84)
DVD
Christmas in Vienna (2020) [PG] ****
A film review by Esme Mazzeo for telltaletv.co on Nov. 14, 2020.
Christmas In Vienna: A Sweet Enough Heart Song
As perhaps is expected, Hallmark’s Christmas In Vienna borrows its basic premise from 1965’s classic film The Sound Of Music, which was also set (and partially filmed) in Austria.
Jess is supposed to be a violinist struggling to find her love for music, and preparing to say goodbye to it, with a visiting performance on Christmas Eve at the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. But within the first two minutes of the film, she has a line that tells us that she doesn’t have much of a journey to go on at all. When asked if music is her life she says: It's hard for me to describe what music means to me. It allows me to live in this magical world of my creation that exists beyond my own. Of course, she’s not going to tell anyone at the orchestra that she’s thinking of retiring, but she’s not being facetious when speaking about her passion for the violin.
We know that every holiday movie ever made has a happy ending with minimal angst. However, to capture our hearts the lead character has to go through a significant change. Jess saying she loves music is a signal to us, even unconsciously, that Jess’s journey is not as prominent as Mark (Brennan Elliott) and his kids. It’s a shame because part of the magic of Hallmark Christmas movies is watching a female-focused journey.
That’s not to say that Christmas In Vienna isn’t a female-led film. Sarah Drew is a necessary component in turning mundane moments magical where possible. Jess’s individual connections with each of the three kids she plays nanny to for a week are special in their own way. It’s particularly touching to watch her help Julian find a sense of home.
There is something sad about watching a young man study a language so intently in a desperate attempt to belong somewhere. It’s sweet to watch Jess try to understand Julian and make sure he always has a place to hang his hat. His dad, Mark, definitely doesn’t for most of the movie. Mark may be a good father, but he’s also incredibly self-centered and annoying. It’s fun to watch Jess put him in his place, especially during the passive-aggressive scene at the breakfast table the morning after he explicitly solicits her opinion, and dares get angry when she gives it.
Also, it’s 2020, can we do away with the plot where the white male must consider leaving a very impressive job for an extremely impressive one, and a woman has to remind him that his kids are humans with feelings he should consider?
As a matter of fact, Christmas In Vienna might benefit if the lead roles were gender-swapped. As it stands, Jess would be a good best friend to have. I particularly relate to her line about just living her life and hoping a man will magically appear. Plus, we share an insatiable sweet tooth. Plus, her talent for finding the perfect meaningful gift for everyone is also impressive and endearing.
Opposites might attract, but Jess deserves someone more exciting than Mark. Sarah Drew and Brennan Elliott have just enough chemistry to carry the film, but it’s nothing we can feel through the screen. The scene where Jess and Mark dance to Silent Night in plain clothes at night because Mark gets over his aversion to dancing for her is as close to perfect as Christmas In Vienna gets. I also like that they subtly break the fourth wall a couple of times by telling us, and each other, that they should kiss after a couple of their romantic moments. But gender-swapping would be interesting where their emotional intimacy is concerned, too. Jess would have a richer journey if she were the one who had walls that needed breaking down. Instead, Mark has a more intense promotion drama and emotional journey. (It barely exists but it’s there).
Jess even shares the only big concert moment we see on-screen with the Olson family. It’s very sweet. But even though Jess’s love magically appears in her life and she also magically gets a dream job at the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra; the best thing Vienna offers her is the chocolate cake and the Olson kids.
Christmas In Vienna airs throughout the holiday season on Hallmark Channel.
Labels: Christmas, drama, family, Hallmark, romance
IMDb 64/100
RottenTomatoes Averages (tbd=critics, 64=viewers)
Amazon DVD
Esme Mazzeo full review
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