jagough49 Review of A Christmas Recipe for Romance

A Christmas Recipe for Romance (2019 TV Movie)

TV cooking contest + personal issues + family values!

[9/10 · 7 January 2020]

Other reviews of this film present opinions - of course - but with little explanation to support these views, mainly negative and dismissive. At the risk of minor plot-spoiling, I think it is essential for a good review to explain what the movie is about, the characters and their interactions, and then base some opinions on this evidence in the narrative. (If a film is good enough, the plot spoilers won't harm the viewing, especially predictable romances, Christmas movies, and Hallmark films.) The owner of an historic rural small town inn decides to enter a prestigious TV cooking contest to win funds for renovations and get free publicity, but she is a horrible cook. She recruits a renowned chef to help but the kitchen isn't the only thing heating up. This is based on the novel, "Recipe for Redemption", by Anna J. Stewart. We meet the heroine, Abbie Denning (Madeline Leon), when she sets the smoke alarm off because, yet again, she is burning something in the kitchen. (She is known as "Five Alarm Denning" for good reason.) She is young, and single, and a sparkling personality who can bring out the best in anyone, but she can't cook - neither could her parents, who had been running the inn. Abbie's grandmother owns the small-town hundred-year-old inn (hotel) in a small rural town. The inn's usual cook has gone away, perhaps for a while, and Abbie, who is running the inn for her grandmother, is struggling to find a replacement cook. On the other hand, the only thing she can cook is the Christmas pudding that is her family's secret recipe. She learned to cook it - perfectly! - beside her grandmother, Alice, who can cook. Sadly, Alice is in the early stages of Parkinson's Disease, and her future is not good. Sadly, we learn that Alice has been drawing on her own savings to supplement what the inn fails to earn, across several years, and now her money has run out and the bank is threatening to take over the inn, or force Alice to sell to a national hotel chain. The serious young man who discovers Abbie in the smoke-filled kitchen is Jason Corwin, a celebrity TV chef from New York. His lawyer-agent has booked accommodation at the inn to help Jason break free from the grief he feels over the recent death of his brother and celebrity-chef partner, David; and from the feeling of betrayal by a former colleague, Roger, who has exploited David's death and Jason's grief to win his own celebrity TV chef position. And it gets worse. Jason was also involved in an apparent episode of cheating in a TV cooking competition when another colleague, Marcus, helped him during the competition (against the rules), but later denied giving the help. Jason has become notorious! And sad. Then Abbie finds out that Jason's former TV cooking channel is going to hold a Christmas cooking contest in her town, and a local cook can possibly be one of the competitors, and, better still, the prize of $50,000 would cover the debt to the bank and save the inn - the only home that grandmother Alice has ever known, and now more than ever essential to Alice's physical and mental health! Exerting all her charm, Abbie succeeds in persuading Jason to be her crash-course cooking teacher, so that, in a few weeks of teaching, she can become a contender for the position of the local cook in the contest. Not only is Jason sad, but he is very serious about cooking, describing it as a privilege, preparing the best food for other people to enjoy. And he repeatedly tells Abbie that cooking is dangerous - sharp knives, just to start with. He is also a snob, and used to top-class city restaurants in New York. He tells Abbie he has never eaten in a diner - even though New York is full of diners that feed people well and keep them happy - whereas Abbie thinks her local diner serves a BLT (bacon and lettuce sandwich) that is "to die for". Jason would rather die than even go into the diner, any diner, let alone eat any BLT! By now we are about a quarter into the film, and the two main personalities, and their predicaments, are clear. Abbie is trying hard to learn to cook, and making mistakes, and Jason is warming to her, and the town, and softening in his intolerances. Abbie and Jason are beginning to succeed with Abbie's lessons, and beginning to know one another better - and finding out more about one another's issues. They are sympathetic characters, nicely cast, and well acted. The tension drastically increases when treacherous Roger appears in the town, organising the cooking contest, and generally threatening anyone who gets in his way. In particular, he threatens to destroy everything Abbie values if she does not let his favoured contestant win the contest. How Roger is thwarted, and what Marcus confesses about his betrayal of Jason, and why, and how everything turns out very well - this is a happy romantic Christmas movie, after all - is genuinely surprising, and plausible, and Roger gets some of what he deserves! The fact that Abbie, all on her own, is an expert maker of her family's secret recipe pudding is her personal ace in the pack! This is not a great Christmas movie, but it is a nice one.