A Season for Family

I don't know if this one rises to the level of a Hallmark Christmas movie we like so much that we'll watch it again in coming years, but I was impressed with the job the writers did on making a Gorian knot out of the problems the male and female leads faced. They made it believable all the way and with only one of the common "romance tropes". We do have a bit of a coincidence. Two single people have adopted sons who happen to be brothers. The woman lives in San Fran and is in the hotel business. Her father owns a ski resort in Park City, Utah, and she and her son find out the brother lives there. By coincidence they meet the brother's widowed adoptive father. The son from San Fran knows he's adopted and the son in Utah does not. The leads both like each other and their afinity grows, but there is the problem of the two boys becoming immediate fast friend without knowing they are brothers and without the one knowing he's adopted. That puts pressure on the man to disclose his son's adoption and the woman to reject her father's offer of a job to stay in Utah as his resort's General Manager. She and the man can't get together unless he admits the adoption, and that's a problem for him, and it's understandable it might be. So the truth about the adoption upsets the romance and the job and the boys knowing they are brothers ... all the while the man may lose his ski shop ... when the woman could save it by becoming the GM and accepting a business proposal her father put on hold. The tendrils of the story reach in every direction and they don't make you roll your eyes at the samey plot tropes which so infest most of these romances. Recommended.

The Brendan Perry is one of my favorite Hallmark actors. The storyline is a very nice Christmas story with a light romance. The chemistry between the adults works well. That said, the two little boy actors are not what I would normally expect from Hallmark. It might have worked better if the children in the story were girls. Or maybe it's the boys who seem a little soft for the parts. The scenery is perfectly Winter and the story is very believable. I can't help but think the movie would have been one of Hallmark's best this year if the boys would have been a bit more "boyish." Or maybe I'm wrong.

Being adopted is one of the kindest shows of selfishness a person can show, but denying that adopted child the truth and even worse family is selfish, insensitive and abominable. Trying to tie deception to a flimsy excuse of a promise to wait for some magic number 10 indicates incompetence and immaturity as a parent. Zero empathy or loyalty to his child but blind loyalty to a person who is deceased? What?!! I'm just so disappointed that Hallmark thought that this behavior would make for a charming character that we are supposed to relate to. Not at all. What if his wife was actually alive and, say, his sister knew and hid that from him because she promised to protect the secret until he turned 50. How stupid is that? Come on. Do better...

Maddy's adopted son Wesley did a school family tree project and when they reached out to his social worker they found out he had a brother who was adopted into a family in the Utah ski resort town where Maddy's father owns and runs a hotel. When Maddy and Wesley head there for Christmas with the grandparents they meet widower Paul and his son Cody. In the biggest coincidence on the planet Cody is Wesley's brother only Cody doesn't know he's adopted and Paul doesn't want to tell him because he and his wife agreed to wait until he was older and could handle it emotionally. This was a great story about adoption and finding adopted families. As a romantic, I can't rave about the romance. But I can rave about a feel good family drama about adoption. If that is your jam for a holiday film...you will love this one.