Tempers Heat Up at Christmas
Former Olympic figure skater, Mary Hamilton (Anita Brown), has made a new career for herself as a relationship expert and author, which is quite ironic seeing that her marriage to Tom (Marcus Rosner - A Christmas Detour), a former Olympic hockey star, is over as they are going through a divorce. But with Christmas coming and a book to promote Mary is convinced that playing happy families with Tom will help with sales and she knows full well that because Tom wants to spend Christmas with their daughter, Sadie (Jaeda Lily Miller), and will do anything to secure shared custody she has him over a barrel. To complicate matters Tom has started to date Jenny (Anna Hutchison - Cup of Love), a fire-fighter, and with Mary making everyone believe she is still with Tom and Tom playing along with it Jenny starts to question their relationship.
Let me break "Firehouse Christmas" down into all its bits. Firstly there is Mary who is prepared to use her daughter to blackmail her soon to be ex in to helping to promote her new bookk, making her a shallow woman. Secondly we have her father, a prominent businessman and bully who pushed his dreams on his daughter when she was growing up and is going to the same to his granddaughter, forcing her to like figure skating. Thirdly Mary and her father will use their positions, one a celebrity the other a prominent businessman to bully those around them. Fourthly we have Jenny who wants Tom to stick up for himself and take a stand against Mary and her father. But fifthly we also have Jenny's colleague at the fire station who is estranged from his father. That may not sound that much but it is more than this made for TV movie can really cope with and as such only pays lip service to each of these plots, never really delivering the drama in a satisfying manner.
Now in fairness you don't expect a lot of depth when it comes to a made for TV Christmas movie and as such what you get is fun, comedy, some romance and then some drama and a touch of emotional depth right at the last. Basically the tone of "Firehouse Christmas" is typical of the made for TV Christmas genre but with some occasional moments of drama and parental arguing to interrupt the humour. The end result is a movie which is entertaining as a distraction but lacks anything to make it stand out for the right reasons, although some of the daft scenes may stick in your mind for the wrong reasons.
What this all boils down to is that "Firehouse Christmas" whilst entertaining ends up nothing special and actually suffers a bit from having so much going on but never really covering any of the depth which the story has.
Tags: TV Christmas Movies, Christmas Movies
