Trivia at St. Nick's: Movie Review

Christmas, trivia, romance and an unlikable lead character.

Welcome to Nick’s Bar where the annual Christmas trivia tournament is the most important thing in this Vermont college town. There are a lot of things to like in Trivia at St. Nick’s and a whole lot of things to dislike. It’s a movie fighting to incorporate so many tropes and stereotypes that it can’t help but bring down a movie a solid premise, but at the same time, you’re sure to find parts of it to love.		2024 Directed by: Marlo Hunter Screenplay by: Christine Garver, Stephanie Jackson Starring: Tammin Sursok, Brant Daugherty
Celeste (Tammin Sursock) is an astronomy professor at an unnamed university. And while on the surface her name might just seem like writers having fun, there’s a bit more going on this movie beneath the surface. A secondary storyline (behind the romance, we’ll get to that later) is that Celeste’s father has died, her mother has moved to the university town to be closer to her, so it’s just them and trivia. Celeste mentioned that she takes after her father – meaning that’s where she gets her attention to detail, her organizational skills, her desire to be right, her no-fun attitude from. But she also gets her astrophysics background from him, and logically, her name. The movie does very well in the themes relating to the dead parent, her new relationship with her mother, and her mother’s budding new romance. As someone who is in the same boat, they got that part exactly right. But it’s also just a minor part of the movie. The movie opens with the worst romantic comedy trope. The heroine is extremely rude upon first meeting the love interest and then hates him for the first few scenes. Celeste takes everything seriously. To the point that she will pick a fight with a stranger who’s not doing the buffet line correctly. It’s possible that her extremely rigid, no-nonsense, no sense of adventure, everything has to be right approach to life is supposed to be funny. But she’s just so extreme that she’s more annoying than funny. Unsurprisingly, her romantic counterpart is the opposite of her, in pretty much every way. Max (Brant Daugherty) is a football coach, has no plans for anything and just lets life happen to him. He’s somebody that Celeste desperately needs to have rub off on her, and the good part of the movie, is that every other supporting character agrees. All of Celeste’s friends and mother included, know that she’s the problem and needs to lighten up. Not uncommon in Hallmark romances, it takes the whole movie for her to finally accept him the way he is. The ending is good, but the movie could have been better if Celeste didn’t take a step backward with every step forward. Celeste also makes some really bad judgements like will literally call him dumb to his face more than once solely because he’s into sports and not science. I don’t know why Hallmark wants us to hate the lead character when there could be so much to like. For those that like trivia, there’s a decent amount of trivia in the movie. Especially at the beginning, but then it become less frequent as the romance storyline picks up. For those that also like Hallmark movies, I’m assuming that’s everyone still reading, it ends with a little bit of Hallmark Christmas movie trivia. I think this will be a popular movie for the network, but it could be so much better with an easier to like lead character.

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