Nice music and a whole lot of sweetness.
| This is my second Hallmark Christmas romance of the season and it’s not a bad decision. The first half of In Merry Measure carries the movie with some nice singing, and a very enjoyable – almost relatable – relationship forming. It’s sweet and then just gets sickeningly sweet, so be ready for a sugar rush, since the movie never dials it back. | 2022 Directed by: Paula Elle Screenplay by: Russell Hainline Starring: Patti Murin, Brendan Penny | |
| Darcy (Patti Murin) is a professional singer in New York, except it’s been two decades since she was a world-famous popstar and now she’s self-producing her own albums since she can’t get signed. She agrees to spend Christmas with her widow sister (Jennifer Robertson) and niece Megan (Cassidy Reichman) back in her hometown of Dayton, Ohio. Back home she finds Megan ready to follow in her footsteps and join the school’s Christmas choir, except Megan gets cut and Darcy first goes straight to the choir director, Adam (Brendan Penny), who just happens to be her former classmate and rival, and after continuing that animosity, she then goes to the school’s principal and forms her own Christmas choir group from all the kids who got cut from the first group. Yes, Hallmark has decided that ‘woman from big city comes back to small town to fall in love with her secret childhood crush’ wasn’t enough of a story so they decided to add the ‘rag-tag group of high school kids learn how to succeed by believing in themselves’. Luckily there’s really only one scene of the rag-tag group of high school kids, because that was nauseating. The kids are decent singers though and elevate the movie more than the adults do. The relationship between Darcy and Adam works well since there’s a refreshing honesty to their conversations. They’re never trying to impress the other person or pretend to be someone they’re not, so their conversations are very genuine and real. It’s easy to see how quickly they go from rivals to friends to more than friends. The problem is along that journey from friends to more than friends, everything is just too nice. Everybody is sweet, everybody is uplifting, all good things happen to all people, and it is indeed possible to have too much sugar. In Merry Measure provides some nice singing, both new songs and old classics. It also provides a ton of positivity. I can certainly understand the desire to have nice movies where nice things happen to nice people, and if you need a strong dose of kindness, then this is it. Over on HBO Max in the US (or Crave in Canada, and sorry, I'm not sure of the other international carriers), there's an almost identical movie called Holiday Harmony, just in case you need more music and romance for the holidays. | ||
Want a different Christmas movie or just more holiday-themed movies? Holiday Movies