A few years ago Hallmark released a film called "Mingle All the Way" about a woman who invented a dating app to find a date for Christmas parties. This Lifetime film, "A Date By Christmas Eve," is similar but with a twist. This time the app is magically enchanted by Mrs. Clause to cause matches to change their personality as you request in the app.
This begs the question, how does Mrs. Clause enchant an app? Does her magic rewrite the programing of the main character's app as it functions on her smartphone. Is the app's source code permanently altered? The film doesn't mention any of this information but it is fun to think about. More Christmas films need silly premises like this to keep our interest in the generic love stories they show us.
This film also features a solid cast of Vanessa Lengies and Evan Williams as the main characters. Lengies is an actor I haven't seen before, which is a shame because she is really good here. She's very personable despite the lack of range she has. Thankfully, she isn't asked to do much with this role. Williams is perfectly cast as the sensitive best friend who is too shy to tell her how he really feels. Neither actor is too attractive for the role as is unfortunately common in these films.
Lengies is Chelsea, a tech employee who develops a dating app (I think it is) with a Christmas theme. The app bears some resemblance to the real-life app called Bumble. The company employs an actor, Mrs. Kringle, to portray Mrs. Clause promoting the app. Mrs. Kringle bewitches the app which Chelsea uses to alter the personalities of several people close to her. She tries to cause her roommate to become independent and to cause her boss to admit her faults to the company president. Chelsea gets jealous when Williams's character, Fisher, gets close to a co-worker and uses the app on him. She eventually corrects everyone by right swiping them which magically returns them to their original personality.
This film is weird and silly enough for me to enjoy it. Lengies is solid to carry the film through the predictable parts. I believe some of the cast was in on the joke too, especially the boss character. Congratulations to writer-director Jake Helgren for finally producing a holiday film that is tolerable after his horrible "A Merry Christmas Match" and "A Dog Walker's Christmas Tale."
This begs the question, how does Mrs. Clause enchant an app? Does her magic rewrite the programing of the main character's app as it functions on her smartphone. Is the app's source code permanently altered? The film doesn't mention any of this information but it is fun to think about. More Christmas films need silly premises like this to keep our interest in the generic love stories they show us.
This film also features a solid cast of Vanessa Lengies and Evan Williams as the main characters. Lengies is an actor I haven't seen before, which is a shame because she is really good here. She's very personable despite the lack of range she has. Thankfully, she isn't asked to do much with this role. Williams is perfectly cast as the sensitive best friend who is too shy to tell her how he really feels. Neither actor is too attractive for the role as is unfortunately common in these films.
Lengies is Chelsea, a tech employee who develops a dating app (I think it is) with a Christmas theme. The app bears some resemblance to the real-life app called Bumble. The company employs an actor, Mrs. Kringle, to portray Mrs. Clause promoting the app. Mrs. Kringle bewitches the app which Chelsea uses to alter the personalities of several people close to her. She tries to cause her roommate to become independent and to cause her boss to admit her faults to the company president. Chelsea gets jealous when Williams's character, Fisher, gets close to a co-worker and uses the app on him. She eventually corrects everyone by right swiping them which magically returns them to their original personality.
This film is weird and silly enough for me to enjoy it. Lengies is solid to carry the film through the predictable parts. I believe some of the cast was in on the joke too, especially the boss character. Congratulations to writer-director Jake Helgren for finally producing a holiday film that is tolerable after his horrible "A Merry Christmas Match" and "A Dog Walker's Christmas Tale."