Having lived in Vermont almost 10 years, I was excited to find this movie on Hulu. Vermont is such a small state that I was looking forward to seeing the little towns that I had spent time in. After watching it for about 10 minutes, I immediately had two major issues with it. First, it was clear that this movie was not filmed in Vermont. I didn't recognize the town that it was set in and all the vehicles had New York license plates. After a quick google search, I learned that Christmas in Vermont was entirely filmed in New York. How disappointing. Why wouldn't they just call it, "Christmas in New York"? Second, the movie follows a protagonist that is sent to "Vermont" to close a struggling outwear manufacturer. Halfway though this movie, I noticed that everybody in this town was wearing outwear that was not the outwear that this little clothing manufacturer sells. Even the CEO wears a Carhartt coat throughout the whole entire movie. Shouldn't the CEO of an outerwear company at least wear the product he manufactures and sells. There was even a scene in the movie where the CEO asks an employee "is that the new coat from the adventure line"? Don't you think the CEO would know a product his company sells when an employee is wearing it? It no wonder why this little company is failing. Details aside, I give this 4 out of 5 stars strictly for the reason that this is just a lighthearted, feel good Christmas movie that my grandmother really enjoyed.
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mjohns-6024029 November 2019Like many bad Christmas movies, you are left perplexed as to how the main characters fall in love. Inexplicably Chevy Chase is in this movie. That, along with the script, leaves you many times wondering, what's going on right now? The interactions are awkward, and are attempting to get a point across, but often times you have no idea what that is. Overall, really great if you're looking for a movie to confuse you. Women supporting women in business was a redeeming quality. That, and Vermont is just great.
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Is the real spirit of Christmas saving jobs? Christmas in Vermont is the latest addition to "Close the Business Down by Christmas" genera of holiday movies. Following the formula, the cold and clueless mega corporation executive (played by Chevy Chase) sends corporate climbing stooge Riley Thomas (played by Abigail Hawk) to a rural Vermont town to fire everyone in a flailing outerwear business. Riley then stumbles across the company's founder (played by Howard Hesseman) who shows her the true spirit of Christmas. Following the formula, Riley is overcome by small town and business charm and decides to use her big city corporate knowledge to turn the company around instead of closing it. Along the way, she finds her obligatory romance with the company's CEO Wyatt Davis (played by David O'Donnell). If you have watched this movie genera before, you can probably guess where this movie's ending is heading.
Despite the formula story line, there are some quirky things to look for to keep your interest. Fuzzed out signs will leave you scratching your head and promotions for other 2016 Christmas movies can be seen in the downtown business windows. Morgan Fairchild has a minor role in the movie but does not appear anywhere in the credits. Perhaps that is because she no longer looks like herself. The performances are solid and Howard Hesseman proves once again that he is THE formula Christmas movie actor of choice.
Worth watching if you have nothing else to do or watch for an evening. -
sblanchard-619321 December 2019The star of this movie is supposed to be Vermont. Outsider "savior" Riley (Abigail Hawk) wants to use the company's Vermontiness to save it. It is pretty clear that in addition to knowing nothing about the clothing business, no one associated with its production has ever been here or knows anything real about Vermont. The movie itself was filmed near Buffalo and could be anywhere USA. That town, East Aurora, would be one of the largest towns in Vermont - bigger than all but 20 of Vermont's 250 towns. Add horrible inauthentic dialogue, epically predictable plot, annoying characters, and wooden acting, and you've got an unwatchable Christmas disaster.
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rightisright16 December 2017You know Abigail Hawk. She's the actress that appears on each episode of Blue Bloods for about three minutes as Frank Reagan's secretary. And come to find out, that's a crime! She is perfect as the typical out of town business person come to a small town to shut down the only business. Shes as pretty as any Hallmark movie leadand her transformation through the movie is skillful and moving. And Dr Johnny Fever? Howard Hesseman makes any movie a must see. And Scut Farkis from a Christmas Story is in it!
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statuskuo28 November 2019Cold corporate city chick Riley, ventures out to quaint Vermont to shut down a company that makes outerwear and learns the value of having a heart. During this festive time we get a lot of these types of heart tugging propaganda. To remind those who lost the spirit of Christmas to re-visit good will towards people. Especially in a time where most towns are devastated by big business coldly killing off American labor. This time it's an outerwear company, thinly disguised for Patagonia. Abigail Hawk, as Riley, is atrocious. Sorry Abby, as Nicole Kidman doll-like as she is, her constant mugging as she delivers dialogue wouldn't be the problem if it weren't that it is incongruous to what she is saying. She persistently chooses the wrong facial expression in every scene. It's laughable. A perfect example of cold city fish earns a heart is better shown in "Curly Sue." Kelly Lynch is a much better stoic raider whose eventual arc has a heartwarming bend. It may also be the writing. As a very straightforward template..it's fine but boy, does it struggle to shoehorn exposition everywhere. The lines are corny and flat and...chuckling at your own jokes doesn't make the audience endear themselves to you if the dialogue is bad. It's bad. Meanwhile, the "love interest" Wyatt is a Patrick Dempsey standin who isn't all that charming. With as much energy as the great Howard Hesseman can muster, this is a flat check for him, a throwaway Morgan Fairchild and a (clearly bored) Chevy Chase. One wonders if this isn't the real Chase. He plays an obnoxious president/founder of a corporate raider company. These old SNL guys dig that role. Bill Murray in "Scrooged" comes to mind. Anyway, this incredibly bland movie gets a lump of coal. Sorry guys, director Fred Olan Ray seems to have choked the life from an already tired plot. And you can find better Hallmark movies out there. This seems to have been slapped together within a week.
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michaelRokeefe14 December 2021Riley Thomas (Abigail Hawk) is sent to a small town in Vermont to shut down an outerwear company for missing set profit goals. Riley finds out that the company is the tiny town's lifeblood and the holiday season and falling in love starts weighing on the holding company employee's evaluation of the outerwear business' bottom line.
Absolutely impressed with Miss Hawk; she is beautiful, although her acting skills has room to be honed. She did have me watching this movie all the way to the end. Also in the cast: Chevy Chase, David O'Donnell, Morgan Fairchild, Zack Ward and Howard Hesseman. -
celt_rock15 December 2019This whole mess can be summed up with one observation. If you're going to title your movie "Christmas in Vermont" do your best to NOT have all the cars driving around with New York plates. There are plenty of movies that are set in one place but filmed in another but there's usually someone whose job it is to make sure the coffee cup is put back in the right spot, the pen is in the correct pocket and that the license plates are correct! I'm not just mad about this one detail. The license plate thing is indicative of the film as a whole. Lazy. Take the easy way, don't pay attention to details, just get in, make your money and get out. I'm guessing the producers figured this was bound for a Hallmark audience... and audience where...
1. Nobody will notice the license plates (or care) 2. Nobody will notice the rehashed story-line (or care) 3. Nobody will notice the cookie-cutter formula (like sugar cookies but someone forgot the sugar and instead dumped in buckets of the cheesiest-cheese).
I would warn you about spoilers but, there AREN'T any. There are absolutely no spoilers. Yes, if you think it's going to happen it's going to happen. Maybe that's why they did it this way? This movie is as vapid as all the classic Christmas song remakes out there with tinkle bells and fake emotion. I actually had to take a shower after watching this movie. I just felt gross. Chevy Chase? Dr. Johnny Fever? Don't let the cast trick you into thinking this is a top notch production. Even they appeared sad to have to be in this. The big reveal-now-we're-in-a-fight moment at the end to stir up some drama? Giant pile of forced nonsensical crap! PLEASE, PLEASE for the love of all that is good in this world, please come up with something new or at least put on a warning at the beginning of the film: "WARNING: What you are about to see you've already seen... and WAY, WAY better."
3 stars because the first 1/3 of the movie was okay. Must be the writers quit writing part-way through so the producers, in order to finish the movie decided to assign some intern to watch the Hallmark channel for a week and write down everything they saw in an abridged version. -
Kirpianuscus18 December 2022It is very difficult to write I like it about this Christmas film. The first obstacle is the dusty story , the high predactibility and the not very happy option for the end.
It is unfair to write I hate it . Because Howard Hesseman and , for a small fist of reasons, Chevy Chase.
But it represents a nice try, helped, with good result, by Vermont locations.
And by the remind of roots and fruits of idealism of youth, about obstacles and bad understanding and about seductive wisedom of elders.
The romance ? Yes, it works decent. Not the chemistry but the science of Abigail Hawk to roll in nice sense the story. -
matthewtessnear17 December 2019Chevy Chase basically plays his a**hole self. Lol. Howard Hesseman is a kind and likeable character. The story is okay. You have to expect a measure of corny when you're talking Christmas movies.
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lovesamystery32-114 December 2020This movie is cheesy, but I have been in the mood for cheesy Christmas movies this year. Howard Hesseman I've always liked, he's the reason I give A Christmas in Vermont the stars it gets.
This isn't a realistic look at Vermont. First, it is filmed in Buffalo, NY, which isn't Vermont. They could have filmed it in Stowe and provided a much more realistic setting. I laughed when I saw the supposed Vermont license plates. That's a NY plate with "Vermont" photoshopped over NY. That's simply lazy. As was putting one photoshopped plate in while all other plates on cars parked on the streets were NY plates.
I've seen feedback about snow. It's almost Christmas and there's no snow on the ground. It was 50 this weekend. Snow at Christmas isn't a guarantee in Vermont. That said, cold weather usually is and any Vermonter stood out in the cold for that long would have a coat zipped up all the way and a hat or scarf covering the ears.
I've lived in Vermont for more than 40 years and I have not heard anyone say "Howdy." I don't know why authors and scriptwriters continue to think that Vermonter's talk like that. Again, circle back to Hesseman, who is as Vermonter-like as I've seen. He often reminded me of my dad, right down to the speech and mannerisms.
Acting is weak for the most part. The plot is same-old, same-old, but I expected the same Christmas romance redone, so I could handle that. The downfall to me came from making "Vermont" about as un-Vermont as possible. -
DonandLiG8 September 2020And Vermont has to be beautiful! And Abigail Hawk is so lovely! It is wonderful to see Howard Hesseman again! See it with a friend.
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kmr-4695612 November 2020The movie itself wasn't bad. I'm a sucker for a cheesy romance movie but if you don't like those, you will not like this movie. The ending was a bit odd to me as well.
However as a Vermonter this movie annoyed me. This movie is supposed to take place in Vermont in December yet there was no snow. Has anyone that worked on this movie ever been to Vermont? This movie should have been placed in a generic place not Vermont because that certainly wasn't Vermont. -
I often say that in movies of this genre you need to suspend a demand for reality. Unfortunately in this movie that suspension of reality takes us so far that fairy tales and other pure fantasy stories become more believable despite the fact that this movie is set firmly in our own world. Chevy Chase is intentionally an exaggerated Scrooge with more interest in milk shakes than people. Tan milk shakes, whatever that means. You don't liquidate a major manufacturing business in 3-4 weeks, not can you suddenly sell $2M worth of product that you haven't even tooled up or bought materials for. But they hang a lantern on this by repeatedly saying they need a Miracle.
I was willing to go along with this way overused plot device despite the impossibilities until we got to the main conflict scene between Riley and Wyatt. The other plot device in almost every movie of this type is the big lie. All she had to do to defuse Wyatt was convince him that she was losing her job as a result of what she did. Even without that, it should have been obvious from her behavior that she had switched sides. The story depended on this conflict and yet it was very poorly executed in terms of writing and circumstances.
Chemistry? Maybe some eventually developed, but how? One single walk between work and the hotel followed eventually by Riley's hard work alongside Wyatt? Even that was poorly executed. She had more contact and better chemistry with Nick. One of the problems was that the antagonism between Riley and Wyatt was so fierce and more importantly, went so deep into the movie, that the reversal was weak. It wasn't convincing.
Abigail Hawk plays an interesting role which I never totally figured out. Was she a go-getter, ruthless rising corporate star? Certainly Hawk showed that this woman had her doubts about that approach early on and possibly some indecision and insecurities that belied such a cut throat exec. I may be willing to suspend reality in these movies, but I always hate when they helicopter a character into a role that her personality clearly contradicts without at least showing how the change occurs (and even then personality doesn't change overnight). You don't get into the rising star situation without years of focused hard work. Writers treat it like history begins immediately after the credits and they can create any past they want without regard to basic personality.
David O'Donnell and Howard Hesseman are fine in their roles with the possible exception that O'Donnell was angry for too long and didn't show enough of a softer side, but that was writing and directing.
I knew what the mechanism would be for saving the company, but I couldn't figure out where it would come from. I wasn't paying attention to a key character in the beginning. I will give the story huge props for subtly foreshadowing the resolution even way back in the beginning. This was well executed. -
geekconnoisseur11 December 2018Like many Christmas movies this is an old plot being dusted off and trotted out with a different cast. This feels like the discount store version when you compare it to 2009's New in Town.
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mar-1689124 December 2021This movie is so bad I want to give it a zero but that's not possible so I give it a one. Within the first 15 minutes of the movie I was starting to get bored and instead of focusing on the plot (which is almost nonexistent!) I started to make a list of all the reasons this Christmas movie shouldn't be on your watchlist. For starters, the information we get about the main character, Riley Thomas (Abigail Hawk), are slim to none! Secondly, the chemistry between the main character and the love interest, Wyatt Davis (David O'Donnell) is so bad, it is disgraces the name of Antoine Lavoisier (for those who don't know him, he is one of the most famous chemists to have ever lived). And finally, the plot development is ridiculous! Don't get me wrong, I love a good cheesy cliché if it's well written but the convenient coincidences and the deus ex machina solution in the end are taking it a bit too far. To sum up, this poor excuse of a Christmas movie shouldn't be on your watchlist but if you do choose to watch it, please keep in mind that you would be wasting 86 lovely minutes of your life that could be spent on a better cinematic production (preferably not a Hallmark one).
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mark.waltz25 December 2023Holiday movies like this are rushed out by the dozen each year, and TV audiences are lucky if 1% of them are watchable. They have little to get all Christmasy over outside screaming Bah Humbug at because they contain nothing but the same old junky plots with characters the writer is foolish enough to think the audiences will find funny. The first scene with the bow tied nervous account manager (Zack Ward) running excitedly around preparingi for big boss Chevy Chase's arrival is cringe worthy, as is the unfunny antics of this one time comic genius who drops an ornament he's handed like it's boiling hot and stands back like he's waiting for applause.
All of the attempts to be funny here fail miserably, and leading heroine Abigail Hawk sounds like she needs a Smith Brothers cough drop throughout. Her cold character is only slightly less frigid than Chase, assigned by him to go to a small factory affiliate is Vermont to prepare for its closing, laying off everyone which is pretty much the whole town. It's way too predictable that her feelings are going to change once she gets to meet young boss David O'Connell and the division's founder, Howard Hesseman.
Poor Morgan Fairchild is reduced here to playing O'Connell smothering mama, still looking like she's getting ready to head to Flamingo Road foe the holidays, and sadly wasted. I wouldn't mind predictable if the writing wasn't so derivative and trite. When Hawk repeats something said to her earlier ("Christmas is a commercialized holiday meant to separate you from your wallet"), all of the paint by number plot twists that you predict to happen certainly will. It's nothing but another opportunity to type big city dwellers as cold hearted while simplifying what people in small towns are like, and the result is another holiday film that deserves to be tossed out with the left over Christmas present wrapping paper. -
Thanos_Alfie21 February 2023"A Christmas in Vermont" is a Comedy - Romance movie in which we watch a company executive traveling to a small town in order to liquidize an outwear factory during the Christmas season.
I have to admit that I did not have high expectations from this movie so, I was not disappointed by it. It's another Christmas movie to spend your time with but do not expect more than that. The plot of the movie was simple but good enough for the concept of the movie. The interpretations of both Abigail Hawk who played as Riley Thomas and David O'Donnell who played as Wyatt Davis were good and their combination worked just fine. All in all, I have to say that "A Christmas in Vermont" is another Christmas movie to spend your time but do not expect much from it. -
cxoorozco10 December 2023Just like every Christmas movie I was looking into forward to some mushy feel good story line. Did this movie deliver that? Absolutely. My problem with this movie is the end. There is absolutely no way that you can have one product for the end of the season, keep everyone on board, have the CEO of the parent company come and congratulate you for going against the wishes and still stay open. Cute premise just not realistic. (Yes yes I know! It's a feel good don't think about it movie).
As far as the acting goes, the main actress was trying a little bit too hard, I didn't expect an Oscar winning performance but at least something that felt less fake.