Christmas CEO

Hallmark has done an impressive balancing act over the last few years delivering feel good romantic movies that value family, friendship, love, AND the careers of their female characters. There's often a common theme about re-evaluating life's priorities but a woman's career isn't as quick to be abandoned for a man as it once was. Their best movies now focus on compromise and try to acknowledge the needs and realities of both of the romantic leads. But Christmas CEO is a sad step backward. Paul Greene and Marisol Nichols are attractive and charismatic actors. Veronica Marin-Estrada was also great casting as the teen. But Greene's character is an insufferable, uncompromising, irrational dreamer with a business approach likely to drive any company he runs straight into bankruptcy. Nichol's CEO obviously ran the business so successfully after he left that she and her company were in high demand for a merger deal. But Joe Sullivan wants to make toys that cost more to make than sell. And he runs a toy hospital in his father's antique shop. I doubt that pays for his phone bill. They never saw eye to eye on how to run the company but, because he and Chris supposedly both own CJ's Toys, she needed and got his approval for a merger. But then SPOILERS: she not only dropped the merger, she somehow unilaterally dumped (?) the company ("technically no CJ's Toys.. I'm kind of a free agent"). WTF? It's one thing to abandon the merger, but what happened to their company? Why start "Corner Stand Toys" when they already both own an existing successful company (thanks to her) called CJ's Toys and all the accumulated goodwill, manufacturing, infrastructure, distribution channels, etc. That it had? If the plot demands that these 2 mismatched people get back together, why not have a trial run with Joe going back to working for the company? He'd see the love of his life more often and they can figure out whether they can work together or not (although nothing suggested he had become more realistic about the business or, more importantly, respectful of her). And if she sold CJs instead of merging it, that would have required a new deal, new negotiations, and a new signature from Joe. But he only signed off on the merger. None of it made any sense. I understand that timelines are routinely compressed in Christmas movies but this was ridiculous. Throw in the tired old trope of an omniscient magical Santa and ugh, that was a rare fail for Hallmark. Fortunately, both Paul Greene and Marisol Nichols have been in far better Hallmark movies. See one of them instead.

So MegaToy Company wants to merge with Little Toy Company, but they need the approval of the other original incorporator of Little Toy Company. Who, not being a shareholder, officer, or director of Little Toy Company, has as much legal say in the merger as your or I. Under MegaToy's logic, Ford Motor Company can never engage in merger/acquisitions because Henry Ford died in 1947. Not to mention the question of why Little Toy Company's CEO is apparently doing things behind her board of directors' back (assuming she even has a board of directors, which would raise serious corporate governance issues). This strained logic wrecked any credibility in the story for me. MegaToys doesn't need a merger, they need a corporation counsel who actually went to law school. Or maybe Hallmark needs writers who can create more plausible scenarios.

They never explain exactly why it would be so terrible to merge companies or why making money is bad. Like keeping the company afloat is supposed to be a negative? It needed more effort.

This Hallmark holiday romance lacks chemistry between the two romantic leads, but follows an unsurprisingly plot to be a moderately entertaining story. The part-owner of a toy company hopes to merge with a larger company, but needs the signature of the other owner of her company, who is now estranged from her. One highlight is the young actress Veronica Marin-Estrada, who is debuting in this film. The story wraps up much as expected, but never delivers the emotional satisfaction of many other Hallmark films.

I usually like Paul Green, but there was no chemistry in these characters. The story might have worked, but it didn't. Extra stars for being family friendly.

The Christmas ToyMaker/Christmas CEO (2021)- Usually I say that it's the lead male that's too good for the female, but in this I would say that it's definitely the other way around. Although Paul Greene does have his very nice chest out at the beginning, he's just a bit too much and has no right to knock her choices and career. He's also actually quite obnoxious and a bit kooky and camp. I couldn't force myself to watch it all the way through, because he was just too weird, which is a shame, because I liked Marisol Nichols in her role. I'd like to see her opposite someone worthy of her like Luke Macfarlane or Cameron Mathison instead. It was also very obvious how things would go and just too twee to put up with. Unscored as Unfinished.

The stalking Santa?! Wouldn't you be suspicious of some street Santa showing up everywhere you are? I get he's supposed to be magical but somehow he came off creepy. The only way to make this movie worth it is to make fun of it the whole time.