Excellent but underrated film

Better Late Then Never

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Yes, I know it is cheesy and grossly sentimental. The interplay from the widowed single mother (she is getting over her husbands death well, kind of like Scarlett O'Hara) and the put upon disabled child is really over the top. Yet for reasons I do not fully understand this is one my favorite Hallmark movies. I would recommend this one for all.

Another Hallmark Christmas movie but this one really is sub-par.Mia is a single mom of a disabled boy (Scotty ) and is also a manager in a small town Christmas hat shop, you know the ones that sell Santa hats for a $1. Do not let that small shop size fool you because behind it all is a big warehouse employing lots of staff and even a bigger management office.However selling seasonal hats has a downside, things are bad after Christmas and the lack of a web presence does not help. The company is in trouble. Nick has been called in from New York by his father who runs the ailing company to turn it around and he specialises in managing companies in trouble by cutting costs.Mia has to get Nick up to speed in the business and he takes an interest in her son Scotty helping him with a pumpkin carving contest and later a cart race.Mia is wary how genuine Nick is after all he has left a swanky lifestyle in New York where he is a business consultant and she fears the worst when she overhears plans to downsize the company and benefits.The trouble is this is just a predictable badly written schmaltzy story and the actors are just going through the motions. The film looks like it has just come off some of a conveyor belt with no love or effort put into it.

While I wouldn't call this one amazing, it's certainly a nice one to watch for the winter season. I've watched A LOT of Hallmark holiday films and this one isn't as cheesy as some of the others airing this time of year. The acting is good to start with, at least by all the main actors. Some of the supporting could use a few more acting classes. Unlike other Hallmarks where the main couple seem to fall in love with a few days to a few weeks, this one has a more logical time-line, which makes the story a little more believable. The only question i have is how quickly the main male lead changes his tune. You'll understand when you watch.All in all, cute and simple, something to watch while decorating for the holidays or while waiting for the holiday meal to be done cooking.

Widowed Haylie Duff works at a small-town store where all they sell is Christmas-themed paraphernalia, all year round. When it turns out that sales are down for the last couple of years, her boss, whose immense office bespeaks the millions he has made off this venture over the years, parachutes his Wall-Street son, Antonio Cupo, over her. However, when he helps her wheelchair-bound son in a pumpkin-carving competition, things start to turn around in this ridiculously detailed but very watchable Hallmark romantic comedy.At least part of that is due to some very fine acting on the part of the leads. Neither of their characters wish to be in this situation and they behave in a way that bespeaks their dissatisfaction and professionalism -- pardon me if I think the actors felt this way about the movie and used that for their performances. Given the ridiculous assumptions as well as the obvious and cheap cries for sympathy in the script, this should have been one of the worst of the twelve Hallmark Christmas romcoms this year. Instead, it is surprisingly good.