It’s that time of year, when more and more people start watching random Christmas films. In the past year or so ago I've bought a few that were new to us from charity shops, and second-hand online stores. Although it isn’t quite December, we decided to start our Christmas film-watching last night. ‘A Christmas Proposal’, set in the United States, sounded as if it might have a bit more substance than some of them…
(Amazon UK link)
David O’Donnell stars as Rick, a lawyer who works in the city for an unscrupulous boss called Malone (Tom Arnold). Malone tells him to go to a small town called Fillmore, in the mountains, and convince the people to sell their properties so he can build a new, fancy ski resort. Rick doesn’t want to, as it’s the town where he grew up, but Malone won’t listen to any excuses. And Rick wants to marry his boss’s daughter Reagan…
Reagan (Sarah Thompson) is entirely a city girl who has no wish to accompany Rick to his childhood home, but she, too, does what her father says. However she’s quite rude about Fillmore and its people, and isn’t even interested in meeting Rick’s mother Maggie (Patty McCormack). And then they discover that the lawyer representing the people of Fillmore, Lisa (Nicole Eggert) is an old flame of Rick’s. The two have some quite heated arguments during a meeting to determine the future of the town.
Maggie would love them to stay a bit longer but Rick has plans for a romantic proposal, which are abruptly postponed when his car breaks down. And although his old best friend Andy (David DeLuise) is a mechanic - the only one in the town - it looks like it might take some days before it can be fixed…
It’s all a bit predictable, and not as Christmassy as I’d have liked although it’s set in December and there are a fair number of decorations up. The acting is a bit cheesy in places (worse in others), although I quite liked Rick. I found Reagan’s rudeness quite disturbing - but then the people of Fillmore aren’t very nice to her. It seemed particularly odd that none of them seem to know how to pronounce her name, and regularly call her ‘Reegan’ - despite it having been the surname of one of their recent Presidents.
We kept watching - we weren’t expecting any great acting or memorable storyline, after all, and it wasn’t a terrible film. It gives some idea of what a small town in the mountains of the US might be like, and the threat posed by property developers. The background music (or that which I noticed) mostly consisted of variations on ‘Jingle Bells’, including some really awful singing on a stage - but even that made us smile a little even as we cringed. At the end there were a few outtakes, not as ‘extras’ but tacked on the end of the film and mildly amusing.
I don’t know that I’d recommend ‘A Christmas Proposal’ particularly, as there are much better Christmas films available. But it was pleasant enough, and I didn't pay much for it. We might even watch it again in another decade or so.
Review copyright 2023 Sue's DVD Reviews
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