More Than Just Fake Feelings
It's Christmas time, not Elise's (Jaime King - Cheaper by the Dozen 2) favourite time of the year especially as her ex husband, Dan (Lochlyn Munro - Falling for Christmas), happens to be her business partner and with the aid of his new girlfriend enjoys tormenting her. Elise is not alone as lawyer, Nicholas Derr (Luke Macfarlane - Christmas Land), doesn't do Christmas either but works for a company which embraces the festive season. Worse than that is that he is up for promotion but mistakenly said he would bring his girlfriend to a work's tree dressing party, trouble is he hasn't got a girlfriend. Having met, Elise and Nicholas come up with a business arrangement to be each other's significant other over the Christmas period and help each other navigate the festive season. But spending time together brings some unexpected results as they end up participating in, and enjoying, various Christmas traditions.
Yes my dear readers "The Mistletoe Promise" is the 2016 offering from the Hallmark Channel which ticks the fake fiancé at Christmas storyline box. If you are not familiar with the storyline well two strangers agree to pretend to be each other's significant others for Christmas and of course end up falling for each other. Of course there is more to "The Mistletoe Promise" than just this as we have sub plots surrounding Elise's ex husband whilst Nicholas feels bad for lying to the boss who gave him a chance when no one else would. And the important thing is that these sub plots, and there are more, work nicely to flesh out the familiar Christmas movie theme and switches things up quite nicely in various ways.
But what is really important when it comes to "The Mistletoe Promise" is that Jaime King and Luke Macfarlane make for an extremely likeable pairing, not overly cute or cheesy but having a nice nature about them despite their initial dislike of Christmas. It is this appeal, this less forced nature and sweet honesty which certainly helps to stop "The Mistletoe Promise" feeling like just another fake fiancé movie; you almost buy into their blossoming relationship and champion it.
What this all boils down to is that "The Mistletoe Promise" is actually a bit of a pleasant surprise because whilst it is another fake relationship movie set over Christmas there has been plenty of thought put in to this to make it a little more than just a reworking of the basic storyline.
Tags: TV Christmas Movies, Christmas Movies
