It’s time for a film that mainly has a very wholesome feel to it but at the same time is a little darker once you actually think about it. I’d say the film goes a bit too far in that area and has enough scenes that just aren’t very fun. The main heroine isn’t really able to hold her ground as the lead either being only a kid and so the film doesn’t go quite as far as it could have. The film ultimately had a lot of room for improvement.

The movie starts off with introducing us to Shirley who lives with her mother in the house of a really rich family that is very mean to the two of them. Mary works as a maid there and so Anita treats her with constant contempt. Shirley’s father died a while back but the Air Force fighters all look after her and help Mary with that task. One of them in particular, Loop really wants to make sure to keep her safe. He suspects that Anita’s family aren’t the nicest but Mary doesn’t complain and he doesn’t really push the envelope there. However, a custody battle over Shirley begins and so he is forced to throw his hat in the ring because if Shirley was forced to join the family he knows they would not treat her properly. Can he claim victory?

Mary is a solid character here who is really just trying to make ends meet and she has done a pretty good job. She puts up with as much disrespect as she needs to in order to get money and look out for Shirley. That’s why it’s rough the way her character arc goes because she was really doing her best and thing still did not go her way at all. I thought the film was really harsh to her because everything went wrong. She lost her husband early on and then another tragedy happens to her.

Then we have Shirley who is okay but she’s very young here so it’s not like there is much for her to do. She is always fairly cheery and takes things in stride. You won’t really see her crying or getting too upset no matter what happens. I’d still say her road isn’t a very happy one even if she doesn’t fully realize what is happening. It would have been nice if she could have spoken up more about Joy, the rich kid who was always being a bully. I know Shirley is a nice person but nothing wrong with calling out the bully and putting her in her place. Shirley may not have had the homefield advantage so the fallout might not be great but I doubt she would really be thinking about that.

Anita and Wellington are fairly cartoonish with how mean they are to Shirley. I’d also say as a result they really aren’t smart at all either. Basically they pretend to be nice to Uncle Ned in order to get their inheritance and yet they do everything possible to make him upset? He says to be nice to Shirley and they basically don’t change their attitudes at all. She keep on allowing their daughter Joy to terrorize Ned and generally be a pain the whole time as well. You just feel like they should have been putting up a much better effort to stay on his good side considering the stakes here. I would say their efforts were pretty awful all around.

Ned was actually a decent character at least. He was actively trying to make things better for Shirley and clearly cared the whole time. It’s really rough not being able to walk on your own since even in a wheelchair his options were limited. I imagine he would have left the family a lot sooner otherwise. The ending is satisfying since you were rooting for him a lot. Loop also did good. The guy was maybe a little more bitter than expected with Adele but it all worked out. I don’t blame him for being upset when she ran off so perhaps getting together again should have been out of the question but otherwise you do need to keep it together for Shirley considering the stakes at play.

For Adele we never got a ton of details on her past and why her relationship with Loop didn’t work out. I was expecting some kind of big reveal/twist on why she left but I guess from the context we have, it was just her making a really big mistake. Ultimately the movie’s ending is good but what holds it back is how it could be a bit mean spirited like I mentioned earlier and the film wasn’t always very entertaining. The songs were definitely really weak here with the main one really not landing in particular. I don’t think Shirley makes for a very good main character either so there isn’t a whole lot of replay value in this one.

Overall, There just isn’t a whole lot of reason to watch this one. It’s not a very bad movie or anything like that but it can be boring at times and I would have handled the plot in a different way. The writing wasn’t always very good and not having great songs hurts as well. I wouldn’t call it a happy movie in the end even if the film tries to really jump forward and not worry about the specifics the whole time. I think you could do better for Christmas films and so for this time I would say to skip this one and check out something else like Jingle All The Way.

Overall 4/10