Christmas with the Darlings – Film Review

Just before the holidays, Jessica Lew (Katrina Law) is ending her tenure as the assistant to her wealthy boss to use her recently earned law degree within his company, but offers to help his charming, younger brother as he looks after his orphaned nieces and nephew over Christmas.

If you’ve been following my website throughout the month of October, you probably noticed that I reviewed a bucket load of horror films in order to get right in the Halloween mood, ranging from amazing films such as Carrie and Halloween II to disastrous ones such as Amityville Cop and Halloween III: Season of the Witch.

Well, since it is officially November, I figured why not get settled right into the Christmas spirit the way I know best – watch a terrible Christmas movie. And I knew exactly where to look… Hallmark Channel obviously. When scrolling through their selection, I was almost immediately daunted by everything I was looking at. Sure the posters all looked the same and by looking at them, one will get a correct feeling that they’re all probably similar in terms of story, but nevertheless, I just clicked on a random one and began watching.

Perhaps one of the other choices would have been better, because Catherine Cyran‘s Christmas with the Darlings is exactly the movie I feared it was going to be. In other words, it’s just like every other Hallmark Christmas movie. It’s filled to the brim with cheesy dialogue, boring storylines, poor acting, and a syrupy-sweet love interest. I mean, what more could you ask for, am I right?

To be completely fair, I have seen some similar Christmas movies that have been worse (take, for example, last year’s Never Kiss a Man in a Christmas Sweater), but watching this movie reminded me exactly why I love watching these movies – they’re just so bad that they’re good. And I know that somewhere out there, somebody is watching these Hallmark Christmas movies and genuinely gets right into the holiday spirit, and maybe they’re a happier person after they watch it and that’s great.

If you like these movies, that’s totally fine. I just don’t. The storyline in Christmas with the Darlings is extremely boring and doesn’t really go anywhere whatsoever, except for the same tried-and-true path other movies in this genre take. On top of that, the writing also suffers due to the incredibly corny dialogue that practically litters the film. Add on some incredibly uninteresting and one-note characters, and that’s three strikes and you’re out.

One thing I will say that’s genuinely always consistently great with these kinds of movies is the costume department. It’s crystal clear to me that so much time and effort not only was put into the film as a whole but the costuming, too. All of the outfits worn in this movie look amazingly comfortable and cozy, and the cinematography does actually make you feel a little bit fuzzy and Christmas-y inside.

Other than that though, you’ve got a complete dud with Christmas with the Darlings. If you’ve got absolutely nothing better to do in the day, maybe throw this on and shake your head and chuckle a bit. Otherwise, don’t even bother.