The Noel Diary (2022)
There are so many Christmas movies out there that when a good one pops up it stands out like a house covered in twinkle lights, and The Noel Diary fits that bill with a couple of teeny caveats.
Jake Turner is a best-selling author who lives with his dog, Ava. When he finds out his mom has passed away he’s sad but not broken up, because the two of them are estranged. Still, he heads for his childhood home in Connecticut to clear up, and among other things finds bottles and bottles of hand sanitizer and cleaning products.
While he’s sorting through the piles a young woman, Rachel arrives. Her mother worked for Jake’s parents while she was pregnant with her and then gave her up for adoption, so Rachel wants to track her down. So she and Jake go on a fact-finding mission, talking to a neighbor lady, Ellie about what she remembers.
When they find a photo album and a diary, though, things really take off. Rachel and Jake go on a road trip to see Jake’s dad, Scott, who lives in a cabin in Vermont, and Rachel’s mom, who has since gotten married.
They also bond at a winter festival and watch It’s A Wonderful Life on a freezing cold park bench while the snow falls around them. Things get romantic, especially when Jake and Rachel have to stay at a bed and breakfast and there’s only one room left. It’s not hard to guess what happens next.
Problem is, Rachel’s engaged. She’s uncomfortable about cheating on Alan, her fiancee, who’s more ticked off about the gas she’s going to have to buy on her road trip than anything. He doesn’t know about Jake.
Yeahhhh, that’s the big issue plenty of people have with The Noel Diary. Here are two really sweet characters who have been through a lot, the story has a lot of meat to it with a lot of great moments, and it’s definitely not a cookie-cutter holiday film, but it has this infidelity undercurrent that is rather off-putting and it’s really hard to get past the “but.” Even if the other guy is pretty much a non-entity and shouldn’t be in the movie in the first place.
To Rachel’s credit she keeps reminding Jake that she’s engaged to and loves Alan, but on the other hand she doesn’t tell Alan about Jake and keeps tooling down this emotionally taxing path she’s on, which is bound to be confusing even without the fiancee waiting in the wings. Ugh…
The Noel Diary has another bit of weirdness besides the cheating angle. While Jake and Rachel are stuck at a railroad crossing at the beginning of the road trip, Jake starts telling Rachel about one of his family tragedies, and just as he gets to a crucial bit the sound cuts out and all we hear is the train. I guess the aim was to avoid repetition when Scott tells his part of the story later, but it feels odd and abrupt.
So yeah, The Noel Diary is a good one, although its level of goodness will likely depend on how much the viewer is able to ignore its really obvious plot issues and morality problems.
The Noel Diary is currently streaming on Netflix. Rated TV-14.
My grade: B+
Principal Cast: Justin Hartley, Bonnie Bedelia, Barrett Doss, James Remar, Essence Atkins, Jeff Corbett, Mike Donovan, and Patrick K. Dooley
Directed by Charles Shyer
Written by Rebecca Connor, Richard Paul Evans, and David Golden