MOVIE REVIEW
A Family ThanksgivingNetwork: Hallmark Channel
Original Air Date: November 6, 2010
CAST:Daphne Zuniga ... Claudia
Faye Dunaway ... Gina
Dan Payne ... Bill
Gina Holden ... Jen
Kennedi Clements ... Amy
Nicolai Lawton-Glustra ... Jake
PLOT: from Hallmark Channel:
A wealthy, successful corporate lawyer (Daphne Zuniga, "One Tree Hill") is living the high life in New York City with little time for anything except her lavish lifestyle until a close encounter with a bizarre mystic (Academy Award(R) Winner Faye Dunaway, "Network") drops her into an alternative reality to see what her life might have been like had she made different choices in "A Family Thanksgiving," a Hallmark Channel Original Movie. Hallmark Channel is the biggest holiday destination in television.
Thanksgiving is coming and Claudia, a self-absorbed, workaholic lawyer is being badgered by her sister Jen to come home for the holiday. After promising Jen she wouldn't miss Thanksgiving, Claudia is instead delighted when her boss appoints her to head up a team of lawyers in the firm's hostile takeover of another company. If Claudia wins the case, she'll be made partner. Giddy over the opportunity, Claudia then realizes the caveat: working the weekend means missing Thanksgiving. While Claudia isn't looking forward to facing Jen's disappointment, she convinces herself that while Thanksgiving is just a family holiday, being made partner is worth the sacrifice.
While preparing her case, Claudia has several accidental brushes with a mysterious woman Gina who repeatedly tries to make an appointment to discuss the lawyer's future. Annoyed, Claudia sidesteps the eccentric stranger long enough to escape to a waiting limousine, which to her surprise is chauffered by Gina. Gina wastes no time slamming on the brakes, causing Claudia to bump her head and fall unconscious. When Claudia awakes, she makes the horrifying discovery that her old life no longer exists. Her fast-paced existence gone, Claudia discovers she is a suburban housewife with two children. As she stumbles through this alternate existence, desperately trying to get her old life back, Claudia finds she is becoming strangely comfortable in the role of loving wife and mother. After making great strides to become a more genuine, caring person, Claudia falls deeply in love with her life, husband and children just as Gina arrives to take her back to her former reality. Now, Claudia finds herself at a crossroads where she must choose between being the woman she used to love or this new woman who is loved by so many others.
I think this movie better suits an older audience only and truly should not be a movie for family viewing, in spite of the name being, A Family Thanksgiving.
This was one of those interesting movies where a successful business woman, Claudia, is placed into the life of being a Stay-at-Home Mother of two young children. She tells the children she's not their Mom, which freaks out the kids, at first, and might also confuse children who watch this movie, as well.
Claudia has to adjust into this new life of Motherhood and doesn't remember meeting or marrying her husband or having her children. Her sister is also a Stay at Home Mother and is helpful with advice.
Claudia asks her Sister, after giving a big party for her husband, if she thinks he expects (and I'm quoting...) "Birthday Sex". This comment would not be something I would expect in a family-friendly Hallmark Channel Movie. Then, later on... after Claudia has a date-night with her husband who she hardly knows - they have a racy "Melrose Place" type scene where Claudia and her husband come through the door, after their date, heavily kissing and begin almost ripping each other's clothes off as they make their way to the bedroom. I couldn't believe this was on Hallmark and titled "A Family Thanksgiving".
The Family does eventually, have a nice thanksgiving dinner, and Claudia realizes how much she was missing in her life before and figures out how she can possibly balance both lives.
It's an interesting movie, just not one for family viewing or young children!
See or Skip: See, but not as a family or with young children.
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| Images from Hallmark Gold Crown Media |
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