Christmas in Pine Valley

This had potential with a fun cast of characters running the business. However, the actor playing the reporter ruined this for us. He was not only a poor actor but also offensive and gruff. In what should have been a fun interview of how the older "couple" met, he kept on asking "and then?" which was annoying since they already answered his question. If he wanted more details, he should have asked follow-up questions like, "that must have taken you by surprise, or what did your family think? The female lead chose to stay in character with her overacting, phony, fast-talking bit which was completely devoid of humor and charm. Lies are always tricky and they have to be executed in a way that is not only funny but endearing. Again, this missed both marks. Instead of telling the truth to the distributor, the female coworker stepped on the lead's foot, then she kept hitting her in the side. Nothing funny about that, it actually made me wish the lead hit her back since she was being annoying. All this within the first 20 minutes before we turned it off.

The male lead Andrew Biernat, is just so awful. Every one of his lines sounds like he's performing in a 7th grade school play. That's the first and biggest issue. He should probably stick to modeling. If they'd selected a better actors this might have been a little bit better, but the story wasn't great either so maybe not. They wanted to make this a love story so for some reason they threw in a dumb twist on top of everything else. I think this is where they went wrong. Terrible writing. Don't waste your time unless you just want to have something playing in the background while scrolling on your phone.

Dreadful. Terrible acting by the lead male who played josh, it helps to use different tones when you speak!! The story line was boring. We fast forwarded a chunk of the movie and the story line still had not progressed. There was nothing magical, funny or exciting about it. Seriously, 2 men having a cushion fight? Why even bother with that scene at all. I don't mind no name actors, it can be quite refreshing. We watched this after having watched "A Christmas to treasure" which was an exceptional movie so maybe that didn't help. I do not reccomend Christmas in pine valley unless you're struggling to fall asleep.

source: Christmas in Pine Valley

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The storyline had potential. Many have called out the writers. The script wasn't strong but it wasn't horrible. The director, should find a different field. The casting was bad with actors who cannot act. Many scenes were staged badly. They were painful to watch. Bringing in models to act? Bad decision. Chopping wood on a wooden porch, next to the windows? Bad decision. Scene cuts at the Christmas dance were horrible. Didn't need a camera shot of an extra's armpit. Running the ceiling fans on a snow-covered porch in wintertime? Bad decision. I don't know where he spent his budget, but it wasn't on this film. Not the product to put forward when trying to grow a television network.

Christmas In Pine Valley (2022) - Andrew Biernat was very handsome, but alas he was not enough to keep me watching this film for that long. I found it hard to believe that an article on a small family run farm business would take days to achieve or that any magazine would pay the costs to have him stay for a week at Christmas to write it, regardless of the previous errors in his writing. I'd be surprised if an article like that took more than an hour for interviewing and a few hours to write and it would have been written months in advance anyway. The panic that ensued after leading lady Kristina Cole as Natalie realised that they weren't actually the family business that she had been suggesting online, but a rag tag bunch (Who would undoubtedly have considered themselves a family by the end of the film if I could have watched it that far) was farcical and these deceitful films are really getting tedious, because they lack any imagination and are more predictable than ever, having been done so many times and none of them that successfully in my opinion. I also hate dishonesty and the ridiculousness that followed to maintain the lie when the truth would work just as well. So when it got to the lie about Natalie getting married I had to turn it off. It was just another deception on top of what was already too much. And it may seem picky, but some of the decorations were very basic and tatty and it was incredibly obvious that they hadn't put much time or thought in to the set dressings or for that matter the film as a whole. Natalie was over the top and Josh was quite boring and not played by the best actor. It was a good job he was so pretty and that was the only reason I made it as far as I did with this one. Unscored as unfinished.

With so many talented people writing scripts how does this particular one get funding and made, is beyond my comprehension? The writers, if you can actually refer to them as that, basically phoned in the script. As many of the reviewers have posted, it's predictable, bland and some of the acting looks like the local AmDram were drafted in to fill the gaps. With huge competition from Sky TV, VOD, YouTube etc., along with many others, I wonder how this type of very low quality film still has a place on a TV schedule? They seem to be churned out like fodder with no regard for quality or entertainment. It's an insult to the viewer to be honest. I also find it odd that every scene has massive amounts of Christmas decorations. Does the set designer have Tourette's? Is this entirely necessary to remind the viewer it's a Christmas movie every single scene? Perhaps if they scaled back the expenditure on props they could divert that money to a decent script? My suggestions would be to improve the scriptwriting and direction, perhaps scale back some of the over acting which would result in a greatly improved production, overall. If you're thinking of watching don't bother, you'll get more entertainment from jumping on a cross trainer, starring at a wall for an hour and a half.

The script isn't good especially some of the dialog. The plot was hokey, a quality publication does a lot of fact checking and would have unmasked the deception early. The deception didn't bother me, it's a movie it's not real. A family in this day and age doesn't necessarily mean the members have blood or legal ties, they can just be good friends that feel like a family. Not the worst rom-com I've ever watched, but it's not great. The DB says it was filmed in Savannah, GA which is an odd place to film a Christmas movie, but the locations were nice. Andrew Biernat and Marc Herrmann are both male models, which is obvious. Rene Ashton and Kristina Cole have been in other films I've seen The rest of the cast was good, not the usual actors we're used to seeing in Canadian made rom-coms.

The plot went from bad to worse. The male lead looks great, but is so monotone. Not sure where the writers came from, but they definitely need new jobs, because writing is not a strength for them. I kept thinking with time things would get better, but it kept getting more ridiculous and painful to watch. The actors and actresses were probably fine and with the right script they may be great, but this was a terrible movie and I think the fault lies with the writers. The male lead was boring also. Good looking, but boring. Oh, and who splits wood on a porch? Do your research people. I only gave it 4 stars because it was family friendly and was a safe movie for my family to watch.