TWAS THE TEXT BEFORE CHRISTMAS

US, 2023, 83 minutes, Colour.

Merritt Patterson, Trevor Donovan, Jayne Eastwood, Eric Peterson, Rob Stewart.

Directed by TJ Peacocke.

The title plays on the famous Twas The Night Before Christmas. A social media variation – where the leading lady, Addie, Merritt Patterson, a chiropractor in New York City, receives a mistaken text from a grandmother in Vermont, Nana. But, that\ey begin talking, friendship, and Addie going to Vermont for Christmas.

This is one of the many popular films for television with Christmas themes – and they are there in abundance. This film has the distinction of being G rated and so available without reserve to the widest audience.

It is all very familiar material with the variation on the texting. Those who make continual pleas for original material, not for them. For those who enjoy the conventions and the variations, the atmosphere of Christmas celebrations, romance, younger generations, older generations, this is the kind of film that is popular.

There are the romance themes, Adie and her being left by her longtime boyfriend and his getting engaged quickly, her friendship with Traci, fellow chiropractor, happily married, holidaying in Florida, always inviting Addie. The complication is that her mother has died, her brother works in Australia, her father, genial, spends one Christmas in Australia and the next with Addie in New York. Complications in Australia, and he accepting the invitation to Vermont, her going to Vermont and meeting the family, especially James, Trevor Donovan, who is a doctor in service throughout the year in South America.

Lots of family cheer, a very delayed romance and no really explicit acknowledgement of it until the last five minutes! But Nana, the grandmother, a bright Jayne Eastwood, is attracted to the widower who runs the local bed-and-breakfast.

While we can see what is coming all the time, the enjoyment is the looking forward to it and seeing how it all works out.

Very American Christmas, some carols in the background, the generic grace before meals, not a religious Christmas but a very humane one.