The Christmas Blessing (2005)

Must See Movie...

A Major Disappointment

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

My only complaint is the scene where the elementary school teacher teaches a chapter on Mexico. Her 'Mexican' costume is cultural appropriation at its worst and her facts are wrong. Cinco de Mayo is not Mexico's Independence Day and it's not a big holiday in Mexico. That almost ruins the entire movie. Technically this movie is a sequel to The Christmas Shoes, but all the relevant information from The Christmas Shoes is mentioned in this movie anyway. The Christmas Shoes is extremely depressing and boring, with terrible acting to boot, so skip it altogether. This movie, on the other hand, has great writing and great acting. There's a guest performance from Blake Shelton and NewSong, but it's not cheesy because the concert is a fundraiser that is relevant to the plot. The movie is about a transplant, so it's tragically realistic, but it's written in a touching 'everything happens for a reason' way.

We don't expect greatness from a TV movie. We understand it will have a predictable plot, lame dialog and low production values. And The Christmas Blessing does indeed have all those defects, but it also has problems that are far more profound. The Christmas Blessing repeatedly pushes away its audience by being internally inconsistent, eye-rollingly unbelievable and amateurish. My wife and I were in the mood to like this movie, but its flaws were so great that we didn't enjoy it.The first flaw is Casting! Neil Patrick Harris plays a surgeon who has returned home. Given that he is a surgeon, he must be in his 30s (or older), yet his Dad is played by Hugh Thompson, who also appears to be in his 30's (and who, by the way, looks nothing like Neil Patrick Harris.) "Father and Son" look so clearly to be about the same age that my wife and I kept shaking our heads in disbelief every time they were shown together.And another major character, a 10-year old boy, has a father who is played by Shaun Johnson, who looks in this film to be in his mid-50s. The casting of these two father/son combinations is so incongruous -so ridiculous - that it destroys any "suspension of disbelief" that a sympathetic audience might have.The second major flaw is the story-telling. We meet a 10-year-old boy, played by Angus Jones, who is depicted as a lonely but normal boy who is good at basketball. Later in the movie, we learn (in totally unconvincing medical scenes) that he has been long diagnosed with a severe cardiac condition that will likely be fatal. Wow, that's a surprise, completely inconsistent with how the boy has been depicted Remarkably, the female lead character has a similar issue. We have followed this female character for the entire film -she jogs constantly and has appeared to be healthy - and she has been dating the surgeon character. In the film's last 20 minutes, she suddenly faints. The healthy lady jogger and her surgeon boyfriend discover that she has an undiagnosed liver condition that requires constant hospitalization and is untreatable and terminal. Her surgeon boy-friend never noticed anything -no jaundice, no symptoms - no signs at all of illness. But we are now asked to believe that, out of the blue, she is dieing and her only hope is a liver transplant.What lazy story-telling! What ever this TV movie was intended to be, it ultimately comes across as nothing more than a shallow attempt to manipulate the emotions of its viewers.Lastly, The Christmas Blessing depicts the medical profession and illness in a completely unrealistic way. For example, shortly after her life-saving liver transplant, the patient is visited by her boyfriend at her hospital bed - and she is shown as being completely recovered from her transplant. There is no pain, no weakness, no fatigue and no IV tubes! She is seemingly ready to go jogging in a day or two, as if she had received a pedicure rather than a liver transplant. It is mind-boggling - the kind of lapse you might forgive in a grade school play but not in a TV movie.Yucch, The Christmas Blessing is a real clunker of a film - it is really bad even as measured against the low standards of Hallmark/Lifetime movies. Stay away!

This made for TV movie is a sequel to the 2002 film, "The Christmas Shoes." Both are based on novels by Donna Van Liere. Some of the characters and cast are the same in the two films. But "The Christmas Blessing," has new characters and several more families and people whose paths cross in interesting ways.So, this film has love and romance, healing from earlier losses and overcoming long-held periods of grieving. And, it offers some new tragedy with love, sacrifice and redemption. The plot in this film is very good, but considerably more complex than in the first film. It has many sub-plots, and for that reason, the script and direction have difficulty in places keeping the parts tightly together. As in the first film, the cast are all very good. Again, the scenery, settings and camera work are all excellent as well. This is another very good film for the whole family, including younger children. It's a nice movie for the holidays, with Christmas again forming the main setting for the film.

I haven't been a fan of his for too long, but I do appreciate his talents. However, I cannot find anything else in this movie to really talk about. I know it is about Christmas time, but nothing really comes from that.Harris is a doctor turned wannabe auto mechanic in order to be closer to his dad. He cares after a kid who ends up having heart problems. Fair enough. But the woman he is after also has medical problems with her liver. Eventually the boy dies, the woman lives, and I assume Harris makes up with his dad. But everything else seems lacking.It really seemed like a mess. There were two stories going at once and the director had a hard time combining the two. As a result, this film struggled and could not get going. "D+"