Hallmark is getting ready to appeal to the music lovers among us with their movie Time for Her to Come Home for Christmas. Shenae Grimes-Beech and Chris Carmack lead an ensemble cast in this choir-heavy movie that hopes to hit all the right notes. Will you fa-la-love Time for Her to Come Home for Christmas, or does it ultimately fall flat?
The Gist: Carly Bridges (Shenae Grimes-Beech) is a guitar instructor and music teacher who is leaving Philadelphia two weeks before Christmas for a small town called Waterford Creek, where she has been hired to help a choir prepare for their Christmas performance. She’s put up in a nice house by the local Pastor John Shephard (Brian Markinson) and his wife Susan (Janet Kidder), who want to do whatever they can to help Carly feel welcome, especially since they seem to know that Carly would otherwise be spending the holidays alone, since her father left when she was young and her mother passed away in June.
When she sees the choir she’ll be directing in action for the first time they, well, they need a lot of work. Though it seems like it may take an act of God to whip this out of time and tune choir into shape, she at least is able to get some help from Matthew Wheeler (Chris Carmack). Matthew is an Army veteran who has just returned home and plans on staying in Waterford Creek for good after being gone for the last five years, and maybe even finally getting together with his longtime love, childhood friend Jenny Shephard (Lauren Jackson). With a choir that now consists of Matthew, his younger sister Riley (Grace Leer), Susan, Jenny, Alice (Katrina Reynolds), George (Jay Brazeau), and Tyler (Josh Zaharia), Carly is ready to give it her all to get them ready in time for their performance, and might even find some love, friendship, and family along the way.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The choir and Christmas aspects of Time for Her to Come Home for Christmas evoke the 2019 Hallmark movie A Christmas Love Story.
Performance Worth Watching: Jay Brazeau is wonderful as the gruff oldest choir member, George. He makes his character so effortlessly lovable. Shenae Grimes-Beech is also very good as Carly. The two of them together have great chemistry and a sweet dynamic as unlikely pals, which was particularly highlighted when Carly had the choir going caroling for George, since he and his late wife used to go caroling together all the time (and to honor her memory, he joined the choir for her, AWW).
Memorable Dialogue: “As the kids say, ‘I’m into it.'” George is so hip with the lingo.
A Holiday Tradition: Every Christmas, Carly and her mom would go to their local record shop and try to find a holiday album that they’d never heard before. She’d get an album for her mom and her mom would get one for her. It was Carly’s favorite holiday tradition. Waterford Creek also has its own town tradition of a Christmas dance, complete with decorations and a DJ, ooh la la (or should I say “fa la la”)!
Does the Title Make Any Sense?: It doesn’t really, until you get to the part in the movie where Carly sings a song called “Time for Me to Come Home,” which came off the vinyl record that Matthew bought her. Carly wants to add the song to the choir’s Christmas performance program because it speaks to her… Perhaps it’s because it’s time for her to come home? Makes you think!
Our Take: I personally think this isn’t as much of a romance as it is a family story. In fact, the end romance between Matthew and Carly felt a bit contrived, even though I knew where it was heading, just because most of the film had Matthew talking about how he has had feelings for Jenny for years. And while it’s nice to see that men and women can just be good pals, I still was kind of rooting for Matthew and Jenny, I mean they had good chemistry and who doesn’t love a “childhood friends to lovers” trope? But hey, people grow apart and change, so I also can’t begrudge Matthew and Carly their happiness.
In fact, I liked Carly and really do want her to have a happy ending, but I feel like she processes a certain reveal about her family history a bit too quickly, whereas I did leave the movie with a lot of questions. Why did Carly’s dad leave when she was one and never try to be a part of her life again except for one letter sent her way when she turned 18 (which I don’t blame her for not reading!)? Why didn’t her dad’s family ever reach out to her if they knew she existed? How is being brought to this town under false pretenses going to help even if the intentions are good?
Time for Her to Come Home for Christmas is a decent movie with some genuinely cute moments (mostly thanks to our guy George) but it just has a few too many loose ends that had me asking questions (like how exactly the choir went from comically bad to sounding professional by their Christmas performance). And at the end of the day, what do we watch Hallmark Christmas movies for if not to turn off our brains, silence all questions, and just enjoy the ride? It was a bit hard for me to fully embrace that with this movie, but I’m grateful to have seen it at the very least for George. The grumpy old man with a heart of gold just gets me every time in these things, what else can I say?
Our Call: SKIP IT. Time for Her to Come Home for Christmas is an okay movie whose high notes do not prevent the film from ultimately falling flat as a holiday hit.