A Season for Miracles

This is the other repeat favorite Hallmark Christmas movie I referenced though there probably will be other seasonal movies that come to mind (including once Thanksgiving is actually over).  The website can show you when such films are on, including this one.  It is a bit more rough than the previous one, not every part clicks as well, but as a whole it does. Kathy Baker has a real stereotypical role as a DSS bureaucrat that does the movie no favors (even Brooke Burns' looser bf has her beat), sad since she has had so many good roles.

The lead, Carla Gugino, has also been in many things, though the usual line with her is that her talent has not been fully taken advantaged of by such projects as the t.v. version of Karen Sisco.  Laura Dern also plays fairly to type as a drug addicted mom from hell.  In fact, the movie starts on a rather dark footing with her in a hospital after a near overdose, soon to be sentenced for five years in jail.  This hasn't been the first time she has been in trouble, her young children suffering, while their young aunt (this film was made in 1999, so she's about 28)  struggles to care for them, not having that stable of a living either.

Both sisters were raised in foster homes, so when the bureaucrat wants to take the kids away since she doesn't have the means to take care of her sisters' kids, Gugino flees with them, their car breaking down in the small town of Bethlehem.  Symbolic, no?  By some lucky chances, mistaken identity (a nice empty house that the locals thinks is hers, apparently the actual owner looked something like her as a child)  and a someone who turns out to be an angel (Patty Duke), aunt and children finally have two weeks or so of Hallmark Christmas happiness, plus falling in love with the local sheriff.  Shades of The Good Witch?!

I like various things about the film. Again, the serious aspects adds character, though the lucky house and job (ironically, in effect a maid for a black woman who owns an inn) suggests some Hallmark privilege,  I also like the lead (a year back, I saw her in Mighty Macs) and overall it is a nice fantasy.  The girl is clued in to The Secret Garden, which is a very good book (also liked the 1990s movie).  And, though Kathy Baker's character was too heavy-handed (you can have the bureaucrats parroting the party line without going that far), the film's parts as a whole did its job.

It surely was better than that lame NYG game.  Sigh.