‘COMING HOME FOR CHRISTMAS’ (2013)

Please feel free to comment on my review.

Home Is Where The Heart Is

This is the 2013 TV film, not the 2017 one.

If you live in America, you probably know what this TV film is when it was transmitted on US TV on the 29th of October 2013 (not November or December as I’d expect). If you don’t and live in the UK like I do, you’ll probably have seen this film when it came out in DVD stores around December 2014.

My Dad purchased the 2013 TV film ‘Coming Home For Christmas’ on DVD in December 2015. This was when I was starting ‘Bradley’s Basement’ in late 2015. I didn’t do a quick review on the film from my first viewing of it. I was inexperienced with my blog and I just did my ‘Advent Calendar’ back then.

So it’s nice to come back and revisit this TV film after such a while and find out what I can remember from seeing it on a second viewing. The ‘Coming Home For Christmas’ 2013 film is a pretty decent romantic drama film that would likely get overlooked and not be on many top 10 Christmas film lists.

I say that with keen fascination. It’s surprising how many Christmas TV films get made in the US and probably in the UK that are mostly romantic dramas and they don’t get talked about much. You hear movies like ‘Elf’ and ‘Holiday Inn’ talked a lot about, but not the 2013 ‘Coming Home For Christmas’ film.

Intriguing also that there’s another ‘Coming Home For Christmas’ film which was made in 2017 and it was based on the 2013 book of the same name by Jenny Hale. There’s another ‘Coming Home For Christmas’ book by Julia Williams from 2014 and there’s another one by RaeAnne Thayne from 2019.

This must be the ‘Spider-Verse’ of ‘Coming Home For Christmas’ stories we’re talking about here! 😀 I’m not really sure why my Dad purchased this film for us as a family to watch on DVD. He can’t recall either. Maybe he thought that this would be a nice Christmas film for us to watch. And it really was!

It was while we started watching the film that I discovered Amy Jo Johnson was in the film. Amy Jo Johnson played Kimberly the Pink Power Ranger in the original ‘Mighty Morphin Power Rangers’ series. My interest in this TV film was raised since I used to watch ‘Power Rangers’ when I was a kid.

After watching the 2013 ‘Coming Home For Christmas’ film twice, I see it’s not one of the best Christmas films ever made. It has some good messages about family and being with people for Christmas time. But that doesn’t stop it from being clumsy in terms of the writing, editing and direction.

The film focuses on the family of Amy Jo Johnson as Wendy and George Canyon as Al. They have two twin daughters who grow up to be Carly McKillip as Kate and Britt McKillip as Melanie. Yeah, the two sisters in the film are actually two sisters in real life. Intriguing casting there. I’ll get back to this later.

Anyway, Wendy and Al spend over twenty years of marriage raising their daughters before the twins become estranged from each other. One sister Melanie is about to get married whilst the other, Kate, disapproves of the marriage, as she sees the would-be bridegroom flirt with one of the bridesmaids.

Five years later, tensions ensue between Wendy and Al, especially when Al gets a new dog called Gus. After Gus breaks Wendy’s mantelpiece clock, she and Al argue and soon separate from each other. Kate learns of this break-up and she tries to reunite with her sister Melanie who’s living alone.

Kate and Melanie soon take drastic action to try and bring their parents back together. With Christmas coming, they decide to have a Christmas reunion at their old family house. But someone else lives there. The two sisters need to persuade the marine and his adopted son to help them out. 🙂

So yeah, going back to the ‘twin sisters’ issue, Carly and Britt McKillip do look pretty alike when you first see them as Kate and Melanie. In fact, my parents and I had trouble trying to identify who was who with the two sisters identically similar, especially when they are played by real sisters in real life.

The film’s beginning also felt clumsy with establishing who was who and what was going on in certain family relationships. It took a while for my parents and I to adjust to the film’s atmosphere and characters, especially with the editing and directing, but we did manage to settle in halfway. 😀

And there’s nothing wrong with the acting on both Carly and Britt McKillip’s parts. On the contrary, they perform their characters decently well. But it was a struggle, especially when there was more focus on Kate’s character development compared to Melanie, who gets abandoned by her husband.

In fact, the Melanie story with her living by herself in that big house its rather unexplored. How did she cope with no servants and didn’t she have any friends to help her out? Why didn’t she tell her parents or Kate what happened when she got dumped? Surely she would’ve gone mad in five years?

Kate seems to be the sister that gets the most attention, especially when she’s trying to work out how to get her family back together; sorting out a book at a publishing company regarding family and having a romantic relationship with the marine Mike. I did identify more with Kate than Melanie.

Also, the reason why Melanie’s husband dumped her was because… he only wanted to have a woman on his arm to please his parents. Um, that’s a rather weak reason, isn’t it? If Melanie was rich and he wanted her for the money; that would be understandable. Not the reason given in the actual film.

I also wasn’t sure about what Kate was doing in her publishing company and what book she was working on. She was outlining the operation to get her family back together for Christmas on a board with a felt-tip pen, but I thought it was a personal project of hers. Not the actual book she did.

There’s also a country music aspect to the two sisters in real-life when they’re singing Christmas songs in the film, especially as Kate plays the guitar. I don’t know much about the McKillip sisters in real-life, but I’m guessing they were cast in this film to show off their singing skills. Do correct here. 🙂

I enjoyed seeing Amy Jo Johnson in the film. I can’t help think of her as Kimberly from ‘Power Rangers’ instead of Wendy when I watch this film, but it’s nice to see her in a different acting role and as a mother of twin sisters. I wish there were more scenes of Amy’s character Wendy in this film.

George Canyon is enjoyable as the twins’ father Al in the film. He also happens to be a country singer in real-life as well as the two McKillip sisters. It was intriguing how Al’s character handles his relationships with wife Wendy and two daughters Kate and Melanie after they split from each other.

Ben Hollingsworth stars as Mike, the marine man who Kate falls in love with and is the owner of the old family house that once belonged to Wendy, Al and the twin sisters. Mike has family relationship issues of his own, with looking after his adopted son and working partner: Jordan McIntosh as Ryan.

The film also features Vanessa Parise as Jill, Ryan’s mother and Aaron Pritchett as Harry, Kate’s boss at work. Special mention must go to Gus the dog, who I’m saddened we don’t get to see enough of. You’d think he’d have more screen time, as he appears on the front and back of the DVD cover, especially in a Santa hat. 😀

There is one scene I found very funny in the film. It’s when Kate is trying to make up to Mike over a misunderstanding, and her mom Wendy, her dad Al and her sister Melanie listen in to give her moral support. The way it’s done in how they creep in and eavesdrop before they collapse into a heap is very funny.

There’s not much in terms of DVD special features for the 2013 ‘Coming Home For Christmas’ film. There’s only the trailer for the TV film. I liked the DVD menu featuring the song ‘Deck the Halls’ played in the background, which gets played during the film’s end credits. I feel Christmassy hearing the song.

The 2013 ‘Coming Home For Christmas’ is a nice, decent Christmas film to watch on DVD. It’s not spectacular and the story and characters are clumsy in terms of the writing, editing and directing. But aside from these issues, this is still watchable and I don’t mind watching it again at Christmas time.

‘Coming Home For Christmas’ (2013) rating – 7/10

---

Return to Christmas