A Carol for Two: Movie Review

A nice and boring Christmas musical.

Usually the musical Hallmark Christmas movies are the better ones, adding another dimension to the holiday romance. Unfortunately that’s not the case for A Carol for Two, which is just a boring version of the romantic drama. Technically they have good singing voices, but nothing that adds any fun or excitement to the usual drama.		2024 Directed by: Jeff Beesley Screenplay by: Nina Weinman Starring: Ginna Claire Mason, Jordan Litz
Violette (Ginna Claire Mason) is a small-town girl who booked an open call and got the role of a lifetime in a Broadway play. Until it all comes crashing down with the play cancelled as soon as she arrives. Now we get to the logline, where she takes a job as a singing waiter at a Broadway restaurant. That is accurate, but it certainly doesn’t give the right impression of this restaurant. Normally singing waiters gives you the picture of a cheesy diner, like the one from Glee. This place is decidedly weirder. Fiore’s, owned by a friend of Violette’s aunt, looks like one of those darkly lit, high-class jazz clubs. There’s a stage, where the employees are given a chance to perform and then the rest of the night work as waiters. And here’s where it gets weirder, the clientele look like rich, high-class customers who are paying for the ambience and nice food, but the waiters are all super rude on purpose and the food is cheap diner fare. I do not get the appeal, I would not want to go there, and a decent but unremarkable singer singing a slow standard Christmas carol would not change my mind. The lead actress is adorable and for the most part always has the right tone for the movie. She’s a good heroine, but definitely on the boring side. There are two male leads: Alex (Jordan Litz) the little more crotchety one who doesn’t like Violette taking away his stage time and frequently argues with his boss about nepotism (who would have guessed that doesn’t help?); and then there’s Brad (Gino Anania), a man-child who is Alex’s cousin and has to live with him because he has zero skills and is a waste of a good smile. The movie insists that Brad trying to charm everybody is hilarious. It's not. All Brad does is delay the inevitable pairing of Alex and Violette. Hallmark Christmas movies are famous for their slow-burn romances, and in some cases the slowness really helps, but there’s also such a thing as too slow. There’s a lot of “nice” in this movie, but it’s all on the slow and boring side. The one aspect I don’t like is Violette lying to her dad the entire time. Every sentence out of her mouth is how much she loves her family, just not enough to trust them with the truth. The best part is the original song at the end that Alex and Violette sing together. And that’s what the movie was missing the entire time – something new, something different, a song that is a little more lively than the very tired Christmas carols they sing throughout the movie.

Want a different Christmas movie or just more holiday-themed movies? Holiday Movies