Seeing Justin Hartley on the poster of this movie made me quickly stream the movie to watch and I must confess, this movie made me emotional at the end. Any movie he acts in I make sure to watch any as he is one of the actors I crush on. I got a crush on him when he acted as the green arrow in the Smallville TV series. Since then he has been my guy, but unfortunately, he doesn't act in many movies, and in this movie his performance was spectacular. This might just be one of the best Christmas movies I have seen this year because all the ones I have watched recently can't be measured up to this one.
The Noel Diary is an American romantic comedy and Christmas-themed movie that was released in November 2022 with Netflix as the distributor. The movie was directed and written by Charles Shyer. Also, the movie is based on and adapted from the romantic drama novella, with the same title 'The Noel Diary' written by Richard Paul Evans. It starred; Justin Hartley, Barrett Doss, Essence Atkins, Bonnie Bedelia, and James Remar. The storyline of this movie revolves around a famous bestselling author who received a call about his mother's departure. Then he returns home to reconcile with his past but meets a beautiful lady whose path was deeply intertwined with his.
The movie begins with the background story of Jake Turner (Justin Hartley), a famous bestselling author who received a call of his mother's death and his mother willing her estate to him. It's been a decade since Jake spoke to his mother but he decides it was time he got to reconcile with his past by sorting his estate ownership and properties. So when he got to his mother's estate, he realized a lot of things had to be sorted out, but then met a beautiful lady, Rachel who told him she was looking for her biological mother who worked as a nanny in Jake's mother's estate who happens to be Jake's nanny.
As the movie progressed, Jake convinced Rachel to stay behind so they could find out more about her mother from his mother's next-door neighbor as his memory of Rachel's mother was fuzzy. She stayed behind and ended up discovering a diary in the possession of Jake which happened to belong to Rachel's mother which all that surrounds her birth. Along the line, Jake and Rachel decided to seek out Jake's father who might know the current location of Rachel's mother, and there, Jake and Rachel's path got intertwined as they both prepared to confront their past together. The story begins. Will Jake reconcile with his past? Will Rachel get to meet her birth mother? You have to watch the movie to know how it all ends.
My Review And Rating.
This movie made me emotional and made me giggle. It was a fantastic watch for me. It felt like I was truly watching a Christmas movie. It captured the spirit of Christmas for me. This is one of the best Christmas movies of this year. Some people negatively criticized this movie because they didn't grow up watching Hallmark movies and it just cracks me up. I wouldn't say this movie was perfect 100% as it has some flaws that made it unique in its way. Even with some flaws, I was impressed with this movie. It is the kind of movie where you can just sit curled up on the sofa with a hot chocolate and a warm blanket and at the end give you butterflies.
The actors in this movie were fantastic with their performances, especially Justin Hartley. Barrett Doss also stole the stage with her performance when she sang while Justin played the piano. That scene was amazing because I never expected Barrett to have a sweet voice and coupled with the chemistry that brewed between the two of them after that scene. Their romance was believable and realistic. One could see that they complimented each so well. Some people complained about how Jake didn't connect well with his father. I don't see that as a flaw because it is not a mother and daughter reunion, it's a father and son. So I don't know why some people said the director should have made it emotional, why? 🤨.
The location used for this movie was amazing, and the setting was done well which will make you notice the Christmas theme. The plot was good but with some flaws like some unrealistic scenes that shouldn't be there and there was no comedy to this movie. Some scenes were written with no alignment to human nature for example how could Jake and Rachel spend an entire night in a car during the winter? How is that possible humanly? Also, we got the impression that Rachel was seeking to meet her birth mother but in the end, it wasn't resolved which made me or gave me the illusion that there will be a sequel to this movie. Hello, why was the end rushed with no good resolution? This is a big flaw I found in the plot and storyline.
One thing that didn't sit right with me in this movie was the fact that scriptwriters made cheating on your significant other look cool and justified. Apart from that, this movie is a good watch and it's enjoyable. Rating this, I would give it 4 stars out of 5 stars. I would recommend this movie to Christmas movie lovers, and romantic movie lovers. If you haven't watched it go on now and watch it. The ending speech made me blush in a silly way. 😅
All images above are from the movie screenshots
Thank you for visiting and supporting my blog 🤗
