'Countdown to Christmas' movie review: 'Christmas Next Door'
When people criticize Hallmark movies for being formulaic, they're talking about movies like the mildly charming but hollow "Christmas Next Door" (airing throughout Hallmark Channel's Countdown to Christmas).
In short: Eric (Jesse Metcalfe) struggles to write his latest book celebrating bachelorhood when he's forced to take in his niece and nephew during the holiday - and gets help from his Christmas-loving neighbor April (Fiona Gubelmann).
Nearly every aspect of this flick is a broad, shallow shadow of better, more engaging Hallmark holiday movies. Eric isn't just a single guy - he literally has written the book on staying single. And he isn't just ambivalent about Christmas - his go-to Christmas present is the soulless gift card and he stomps about while removing holiday decorations mysteriously placed in his yard. And just for good measure, Eric's girlfriend Bridget has less patience with children than Eric.
Buried somewhere beneath the "holiday scrooge learns the true meaning of Christmas from two kids and his chipper neighbor" are a pair of ham-handed subplots involving Eric's writer's block and April's audition anxiety. "Next Door" is so focused on Eric and April's growing relationship that the movie all but forgets those subplots until the third act. These career b-plots add so very little to the movie that "Next Door" would be better served if they were omitted entirely. April's career subplot is so irrelevant that its resolution is hastily tacked on as one of the very last lines of the movie - treated as the throwaway movie detail it is.
Yet, despite its meager plot and thin character with only the minimal of character arch, "Next Door" somehow remains a nice holiday movie that manages to chug along. Gubelmann's bouyant and bubbly turn adds an undeniable, much needed charm to an otherwise empty character. Although Eric is defined by his single life and non-holiday cheer, Metcalfe succeeds in preventing Eric from devolving into an outright caricature. His character always feels like a genuinely good guy who soured on the holidays rather than a fundamentally grumpy person who has not love for Christmas. Were it not for the delightful combination of Gubelmann and Metcalfe, then "Next Door" would collapse under its weak story and characters.
Final verdict: Many other Hallmark movies have done the "Christmas enthusiast takes on the holiday scrooge" story - but with an actual storyline and characters. A perfectly OK, little movie but flat and uninspired.
Score: 2 turtle doves out of 5
"Christmas Next Door" airs throughout Hallmark Channel's Countdown to Christmas. It is rated TV-G and has a running time of 90 minutes.
