Santa Tell Me: Movie Review

Santa's magic can't save this rom-com.

The appeal to Santa Tell Me is in the magical intervention on Olivia (Erin Krakow’s) love life, because everything else it does in service of a holiday rom-com is very unappealing. Olivia is a one-dimensional no-nonsense, over-worked television show interior designer. It’s a common, but over-used character for Hallmark movies, and it’s very tiring here. And then the worst trope of all, she misidentifies her future romantic interest and is immediately extremely rude and antagonistic towards him.		2024 Directed by: Ryan Landels Screenplay by: Ryan Landels Starring: Erin Krakow, Daniel Lissing
Allow me to backtrack slightly since the premise does imply that the romantic interest is going be done a bit differently here. Her magical letter, written by Santa himself, informs her that her soul mate is named Nick. She then proceeds to meet the very next day three single, attractive Nicks all looking to date her. If you are new to romantic comedies, you might assume she ends up with one of those Nicks. The problem is that most, if not all of us, within the target audience are not new to romantic comedies, and the movie makes it very obvious that she actually ends up with Chris, her new boss, that she hates. There is a lot of clunky writing in the movie starting with the opening scene. Olivia who is leading her own holiday home makeover special, gathers all the staff for a meeting. A meeting in which she reminds them in very big picture general terms what they’ll be doing on the show. And that was the whole meeting. She didn’t tell them anything new, pulled them all out of their busy day for a three-minute meeting, just to describe what the show is about. She might be the worst boss ever. Especially since she never talks to another of her staff again for the rest of the project. Back to the romance, a big problem with this premise is that having four romantic interests significantly decreases the amount of the time she spends with and gets to know her future soulmate. Initially, she has no chemistry with any of the Nicks, eventually that changes but only because they’re the ones that she actually goes on dates with and are romantic towards her. But also anybody who thinks popping champagne while on skates on ice is a good idea – is an absolute moron, and you should not consider dating them. Erin Krakow does her best to bring warmth to a character that doesn’t deserve it. Meanwhile Daniel Lessing as Chris is not given the time to take their relationship from antagonism to a true partnership and that change is not gradual but occurs abruptly in the middle. I understand why people like the idea of a magical intervention to help you find your soulmate, but nothing else in Santa Tell Me is appealing and relies on all the worst rom-com-isms.

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