Holiday Engagement (2011)

Pretty Good

Highly Overrated But Still Good

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

This is definitely not one of the worst cheesy Christmas movies I've seen, nor the best. The characters start out weak, but I think as the movie goes on the characters get better. The two leads, Hillary and David grow to have very nice chemistry. There are a few cute scenes with the two of them. Some of the supportive characters are pretty bad and annoying. What really bugged me throughout the movie was the lighting. Everyone's faves are tinted green. At times I wondered if someone got punched in the face or maybe had terrible concealer on. All in all it wasn't the worst.

This story is very predictable and unfortunately not that well done. There are however some good moments.Who did the lighting? It was horrendous. I don't know how many scenes there were where faces were poorly lit. In at least one, an entire face was difficult to see at all and in several scenes partial faces were badly shadowed. In one scene the youngest sister looked like her lip was bleeding or lipstick badly smudged.Shelly Long started out horrible. Part of this was intentional, but to me she overplayed it. And she looked bad. She got a little better as the film went on.There were some attempts at humor, many of which were ridiculous situations like Thanksgiving at the Mexican restaurant. To me most of them were barely funny and some were kind of funny.***SPOILERS*** Bonnie Somerville and Jordan Bridges did not sell the story that justified Hillary ending up with David. Part of that was the story and that they didn't have enough screen time. David had barely admitted he was over Lindsay, and Hillary had barely decided she hated Jason and the next thing, Hillary and David are professing love for one another.I loved when Bonnie Somerville sang with Bridges. Bridges wasn't great but Somerville was. And it was romantic.The final montage at the church and after was nice and also romantic.

I'm gonna give this one 9 stars. This is a general feel good romance movie. Some people may find it cheesy. And, OK, so it may be predictable like several reviews have mentioned but if you want a romance movie that leaves your heart feeling lighter and happier at the end, then this is it. I loved this movie. Something about it reminds me of my own relationship with my spouse maybe because sometimes the person you think you are supposed to be with is not the person you would be happiest with. And the somewhat ordinary person causes you to be happier than you would have ever guessed. I was having kind of a lousy day and this movie cheered me up.

I enjoyed this movie, pretty much all Actors gave it their best! It didn't feel a full-on festive type Christmas movie though, felt more like it was about the main character and her road to figuring out what she wanted from life. Also, while both of the main cast, Bonnie Somerville and Jordan Bridges did really well in their roles (albeit Bonnie Somerville was a little wooden at times)I never felt a whole lot of chemistry between them...usually in movies like this you can pretty much predict that the two will fall in love throughout and get together in the end...and I don't mind those movies, most live for happy endings! I just didn't feel much chemistry between them at all and I've watched my fair share of chic flick/romcoms, even holiday romance ones, but this....felt more of a comedy type than romance. Was still enjoyable to watch though, so that's why it still gets a 6/10