The Spruces and the Pines (2017) Movie Review

The Spruces and the Pines (2017)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Jonna Walsh in The Spruces and the Pines (2017)

Fir Flies Thats to a Feud

It's been almost a year since her mother died and with Christmas coming Julie Pine (Jonna Walsh) returns home from college to her father's Christmas tree farm to help as he knows he will be short handed. And soon after returning home she meets Rick (Nick Ballard), whilst out delivering cookies to the Spruce tree farm which is next door to the Pine's. The thing is that Julie's father, James (Tom Kemp - The 12 Dogs of Christmas), and Dave Spruce (Ken Cheeseman), owner of the Spruce farm, have been feuding for longer than either care to remember and Julie doing a good deed by delivering cookies only stirred things up even more. But that is nothing compared to the fact that Dave Spruce happens to be Rick's uncle and so Julie and Rick's fledgling romance is not going to be a smooth ride even if it seems like someone is playing cupid.

It seems like I may have hit the broken record stage of Christmas movie reviewing for this year as whilst I watched "The Spruces and the Pines" I found myself struggling for a way to be fresh in reviewing it. But truth be told I can't as whilst we have a bit of mystery surrounding what led to the bitter feud between the Spruces and the Pines the rest of the movie is pretty generic. As such we have Julie and Rick falling for each other and whilst trying to keep the peace by keeping it secret also set about trying to bring an end to the feud as they discover things are more complicated than they first thought. Look, "The Spruces and the Pines" is not a bad movie, it isn't overly wintry but as Christmas movies go it has a nice look and is reasonably entertaining, but it can't escape from being too familiar.

Beside the routine romantic storyline "The Spruces and the Pines" does still work and with it going for the easy to watch drama route with just a couple of light hearted characters there is an almost soulful vibe to it. But I hate to say this but this lacks that some thing extra, that chemistry or big moment to make it stand out from the crowd and certainly doesn't deliver that Christmas magic which I love from Christmas movies.

What this all boils down to is that "The Spruces and the Pines" is an okay Christmas movie which alongside a bit of a Romeo & Juliet style romance has a mystery behind a feud which is not that surprising but kind of entertaining.

Tags: TV Christmas Movies, Christmas Movies


LATEST REVIEWS