Sense, Sensibility & Snowmen

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source: Sense, Sensibility & Snowmen

Makes little sense to judge this movie based upon an Austen novel penned in the early 1800's. I certainly do not watch Hallmark shows for historical content or for character studies from a loosely based novel. I suspect the same folks critical of this show based upon Austen's historical references would be having a cow watching last year's Hallmark Christmas shows depicting characters from Pride & Prejudice. Note also this film ran on the Hallmark Movies & Mystery channel, which I have always found to be less sappy. if I want to view the big smiles, giggles and excessive sentimentality I would tune into the traditional Hallmark channel where that stuff is in abundance.

Look, it's a Hallmark movie. If you're going to watch it then you probably already know what you're going to get. Yes, it's predictable, but I also found it enjoyable. Obviously, I'm not hung up on the Jane Austen concerns that other people have. As a standalone movie, the storyline pretty much follows the Hallmark movie pattern, but it had its fair share of warmth and humor.

Apart from the names of the characters this movie doesn't use much of the Jane Austen novel for plot inspiration. The story is a simple familiar story of a party planner and a toy maker. I like the cast - Erin & Luke are watchable but there isn't much in terms of story.

5/10 - this movie stacks holiday movie cliché upon holiday movie cliché and will not be remembered in more than a few weeks

First off, I want to clarify that I love Jane Austen, I love Sense and Sensibility and the Emma Thompson/Kate Winslet adaptation is one of my favorite films without question - I adore that movie! Ok, we're my Austen-loving sensibilities offended by this Hallmark rendition? Not in the least! True, it resembles Jane Austen's plot very little, the Ella (Elena) and Marianne characters were completely switched and pretty much only some character names were recognizeable. So, what? Whoopty do, people!! The storyline was still sweet. It was a lot of fun to me to see Erin Krakow play a more light-hearted and even slightly irresponsible character than her usual roles. Ved her! She was very much like our beloved Marianne without being overly immature. I loved the Edward character, also. And I enjoyed the relationship between the two sisters. At first, I found the older sister pretty uptight and kind of annoying, but when she got all tongue-tied talking to her crush, I couldn't help but start to like her. Hallmark makes a lot of Christmas movies - some good, some memorable, some just mediocre and some unwatchable. Some I love, some I like and some I loathe. This one was fun and Krakow made it so. Did I love it? No, but liked it a lot. It made me smile a lot. Will I watch it every year like I do some of my faves? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But, I don't regret watching it one bit!

Erin and Luke! I'm so sorry you had to follow this script. For starters, take as many Christmas and romance tropes that you can and jam them all together around the party-planner premise. Worst of all was misunderstood-what-you-saw which doubled down with misunderstood-what-you-heard with a different person not a minute later. Please! Then there was dialogue. They must have thought it was witty. Maybe for a 13 year old. At least I don't remember hearing "you like-like" him or her. But add to the dialogue some grown ups acting pretty goofy, and it didn't really fit. We didn't get off to a great start with Ella. Does any viewer of this type movie not hate the boastful overconfident incompetent glide-through-life character? If that hadn't been overdone, it wouldn't be so bad. Fortunately Ella turned it around pretty quickly. Didn't love the French accents. After all this criticism, which I think is at least mostly accurate, I didn't hate the movie. Part of that is because Ella was almost like a different person for most of the movie after that rough start. By half way or more Krakow and Macfarlane were clicking together. I may be biased because I love these two individually. Something about Krakow makes you go ah. Also, there was one interesting twist on the usual. Usually the lead potential lovers have a spat based on one discovering something the other was hiding, but in this case it was the sisters. The spat between the sisters was carried out and healed very much like it would be with the lovers.

Despite not being all that enamoured generally with Hallmark's 2019 output, 'Sense, Sensibility and Snowmen' was still seen for completest sake. As well as because of my lifelong love for Christmas and my love for the source material that the film is loosely inspired by (Jane Austen's 'Sense and Sensibility'). Luke Macfarlane is always watchable. Despite what people might think reading past reviews for Hallmark's festive offerings, some of which are quite critical, not all of them are bad. There are above average ones out there. 'Sense, Sensibility and Snowmen' isn't one of them sadly. The premise sounded like there would be a couple of attempts to be different, but mostly story-wise it was typical Hallmark in the cookie cutter fashion that is seen in too many of their Christmas offerings. As far as Hallmark's 2019 Christmas films go, 'Sense, Sensibility and Snowmen' is neither one of the best or worst, somewhere around low middle. As a film on its own, it didn't strike me as a terrible film but it is a long way from great. There are good things here definitely, it takes a lot for me actually to call a Hallmark film or anything film/television etc-related irredeemable. It's nicely filmed and has some very eye catching scenery. There are some pleasant moments on the soundtrack. Macfarlane is a likeable enough male lead and Kimberley Sustad is spirited support. Erin Krakow however is the opposite. She badly overacts with no attempts at nuance or making the character more than a stereotype and the character grates very quickly, nothing likeable or endearing about her. She has no chemistry with Macfarlane, they even look uncomfortable together. All the chemistry seemed disconnected between all and the rest of the acting is nothing memorable. The direction never rises above workmanlike at best and tends to be pedestrian. While the soundtrack has moments, it tends to be used too much and over-scored. Very intrusive too often. The script is basically the shallowest of froths, more sugary than a candy cane and cheesier than cheese gone off. The story is very dull and thin, and is also very contrived and without anything fresh. The characters don't engage or are easy to root for on the whole, especially Ella. Summing up, very lacklustre. 4/10

I love Erin Krakow in When calls the heart but this film is a bit disappointing. It has its moments but over all the story is just too shallow. Hallmark movies are of course Hallmark movies and you shouldn't expect too much depth but this script is just not good enough. The title suggest that it has something to do with Jane Austen but in reality it does not. Too bad that these two actors didn't get a better script.