Mary Steenburgen is fine as Ginny Grainger, a wife and mom in a small town. She's just one of a number of people who are going through hard times. As a result, she's not exactly in the Christmas spirit. Assigned to make Ginny see the light again is guardian angel Gideon (Harry Dean Stanton), who also makes a connection to Ginny's daughter Abbie (Elisabeth Harnois).
This is a rather odd effort for the Disney company. While it may be sweetness and light at times, in the classic Disney tradition, it also goes to some rather dark places, surprisingly. It's not the harmless kind of trifle one could easily recommend for family viewing. Still, it IS Disney, so it never dwells too long on unpleasantness. It doesn't contain as much magic as one would think, going by that title. It spends some time in Santas' workshop, but the place looks like it was done on a budget. Visual effects are sparingly used, but the on location shooting in Canada does help to create a nice rural small-town-in-the-wintertime feeling.
It does benefit from appealing child actors (the adorable Harnois and Robbie Magwood as the Grainger children, a very young Sarah Polley in her film debut), and a rock-solid adult cast: Gary Basaraba as the dad / husband (a dreamer who yearns to open his own bike shop), Arthur Hill as the great-grandfather, an under-utilized Michelle Meyrink as a neighbour, Elias Koteas as a family friend, Wayne Robson as a townsperson with his own money problems, Jan Rubes as Santa Claus, Graham Jarvis as a realtor, and Timothy Webber as Ginny's boss. At first glance, Stanton DOES seem a highly unlikely choice for an angel character in a Disney film, but his warm presence really helps the film a lot.
Reasonably entertaining, but a little too uneven to be completely effective.
Six out of 10.
This is a rather odd effort for the Disney company. While it may be sweetness and light at times, in the classic Disney tradition, it also goes to some rather dark places, surprisingly. It's not the harmless kind of trifle one could easily recommend for family viewing. Still, it IS Disney, so it never dwells too long on unpleasantness. It doesn't contain as much magic as one would think, going by that title. It spends some time in Santas' workshop, but the place looks like it was done on a budget. Visual effects are sparingly used, but the on location shooting in Canada does help to create a nice rural small-town-in-the-wintertime feeling.
It does benefit from appealing child actors (the adorable Harnois and Robbie Magwood as the Grainger children, a very young Sarah Polley in her film debut), and a rock-solid adult cast: Gary Basaraba as the dad / husband (a dreamer who yearns to open his own bike shop), Arthur Hill as the great-grandfather, an under-utilized Michelle Meyrink as a neighbour, Elias Koteas as a family friend, Wayne Robson as a townsperson with his own money problems, Jan Rubes as Santa Claus, Graham Jarvis as a realtor, and Timothy Webber as Ginny's boss. At first glance, Stanton DOES seem a highly unlikely choice for an angel character in a Disney film, but his warm presence really helps the film a lot.
Reasonably entertaining, but a little too uneven to be completely effective.
Six out of 10.