A Christmas Duet (Hallmark) Reviewed by Duck and Star #MoviesThatNeedTylerHynes

February 24, 2024

A Christmas Duet (Hallmark) Reviewed by Duck and Star #MoviesThatNeedTylerHynes

Two out of five "flippers up" (the equivalent of two stars)

Duck: Friends, you’d think with a winter festival to organize, a lodge to run, and a Top Winter Lodge Award to compete for, Averie (Chaley Rose) wouldn’t have the time to rekindle her old love with musician Jesse (Rome Flynn), but you’d be wrong. The problem is, your truly, a duck of true romance, was not swept of his flippers by this Christmas romance.

Star: And we were so looking forward to it! As the plot goes, Averie and Jesse had a hit single back in the day—a romantic Christmas pop duet that had nothing to do with ducks—and their reunion should have been scintillating, but honestly, in our personal duck-pinion, it had all the whack of an unsalted pilchard.

Duck: Perhaps the fishy lack of romantic chemistry could have been helped by either an aioli dip or a stronger screenplay. Or Tyler Hynes. (But what movie doesn’t benefit from Tyler Hynes, I ask? #MoviesThatNeedTylerHynes)

I mean, even the festival prep, which was meant to cause more time-pressure than a honkless goose, just seemed to limp along without much excitement at all. (Tyler, where art thou?)

Star: Agree! And when it comes to pizzazz, there was far more sparkling chemistry between Phyllis (Teryl Rothery), the lodge award judge, and lodge guest Dan (Mike Dupod)—who both played more minor parts—than there was between the protagonists. In fact, simply seeing Phyllis and Dan laughing together in a horse-and-carriage really raised the vibe. Nice to see Black protagonists as well, and some good diversity in general.

Duck: Still, I would have given up on the movie if Star wasn’t so ducking determined to finish it. How could I let my poor human down?

Star: Wait a minute! I stayed so you could finish the movie.

Duck: You mean our communication was even more frogless than the protagonists’?

Star: Yup. Frogs were totally lacked across the ducking board.

Duck: It’s just as well, Star. I mean, you don’t want to kiss too many.

At the time of writing, you can watch A Christmas Duet here:

Amazon Prime (Hallmark Channel subscription or rental)

Vudu (Rent)

Pluto TV (never tried ’em, folks)

Peacock (subscription)

Apple (rent)

Google Play (rent)

Sling TV (subscription)

Featured image and #MoviesThatNeedTylerHynes logo courtesy of Hallmark and Star Tavares

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romanceypants

A nonbinary human and their smart-beaked duck gab about romance novels, movies, and being ourselves.

About US

Welcome! I’m Star Tavares. I am queer and nonbinary, and I use they/them pronouns. My hubby Jake is LGBTQIA+ too. Our plush duck is called Duck and is super-ducking awesome. He likes to call himself an award-winning duck because we wrote a screenplay about him that won some awards, and who are we to argue?

The thing is, we used to publish in the romance genres, but after we came out, we thought romance didn’t want us anymore. But you know what, toots? We were wrong.

Now we’ve rebuilt our confidence and are back to living our Romancey Pants life, writing, reviewing romance movies, reading romance novels, and doing a whole lot of stretching. (Did I mention we’re getting older?)

Want to know more about Star’s writing credits? Under another name, Star has published romance stories, novels, and novellas with presses like Harper Collins and Cleis, and has won awards for their shorter works from the likes of Glimmer Train, Screencraft, and Narrative, where they also worked as an editor. More recently, Star’s nonfiction about gender identity has appeared in The New York Times and at Huffington Post Personal.

Since Jake, who is also a romance author, is starting to add more reviews here (along with Duck’s best frenemy Sir Mallard Jones) watch this space for more about him and his career.

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Romancey Pants