‘Twas The Text Before Christmas is a 2023 Great American Family film staring Merritt Patterson and Trevor Donovan.
The initial premise of this movie is an e-safety nightmare!! So much personal detail shared with a stranger and then the stranger danger alarms ring through the first third of the movie!
We paused this movie to pick holes in it a lot! The decorations are just too much but then you see the decor in the main male’s house – they’re just awful! The wreaths are covered in baubles with no rhyme or reason!
The cringes happen in a true-to-life kinda way, so while they are frequent, they’re appropriate at least! The inn owner, Carter, is our absolute favourite character! He’s brilliant and sweet and raises the charm of the movie up a few notches!
While there is festive and background music and the best friend is supportive and encouraging, ultimately, this movie lacked any real Christmassy feels but had a good sprinkling of goodwill. At the time of watching Netflix lists it as No.9 in films today; all I can say is, I’m sorry to everyone who watched it before this review. It’s a pretty hard pass for us.
IMDb
Merritt Patterson
Trevor Donovan
Matt’s Extra Trimmings
While there is a lot that is wrong with this movie (the stranger danger, the E-Safety disaster of giving your personal details to a random person who just texted you, the absurd amount of garish decorations, the complete lack of understanding on how time zones work) there was a lot to redeem it as a Crappy Christmas Movie. There are no less that three Christmases, festive lattes are in abundance and the side characters really do bring the charm. So while this is not one that will likely be revisited, it provided many memorable moments and a few laugh out loud occasions, in a ‘isn’t this insane’ kind of way.
Christmas Movie Guide 