Screen Rant by Brittany Witherspoon
The film exceeds expectations with respect to being a Netflix Christmas production, but it is thoughtful and sincere all the same.
✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
United States · 2022
1h 39m
Director Charles Shyer
Starring Justin Hartley, Barrett Doss, Bonnie Bedelia, Essence Atkins
Genre Comedy, Drama, Romance
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Best-selling author Jacob Turner returns home at Christmas to settle his estranged mother's estate, and discovers a diary that may hold secrets to his own past and that of Rachel - a mysterious woman on a journey of her own.
Screen Rant by Brittany Witherspoon
The film exceeds expectations with respect to being a Netflix Christmas production, but it is thoughtful and sincere all the same.
The New York Times by Lisa Kennedy
The director Charles Shyer brings a journeyman’s ease to the screenplay (based on Richard Paul Evans’s novel by the same name): embracing holiday movie expectations here, gently deflecting them there.
Los Angeles Times by Noel Murray
Overall, this picture is a refreshing alternative to the synthetic, simplistic Christmas movies that proliferate this time of year. Ditch the mistletoe and holly and it would still be a well-crafted, well-balanced character sketch, following two lost souls as they discover what they’ve been missing.
Charles Shyer, who co-wrote this with a Netflix house hack (“Dangerous Lies”) blows too many of his shots at “charming,” never quite nails down the “romance” and dithers away the “mystery” in this flavorless variation on formula.