An Unexpected Christmas

An Unexpected Christmas centers around two main characters, Emily (Bethany Joy Lenz) and Jamie (Tyler Hynes). In the beginning of the movie, Emily and Jamie have recently broken-up after a long-term relationship. Emily is looking forward to going to Hawaii to celebrate the Holidays and is going to seize the opportunity to truly get over the breakup. Her plans are turned upside down when the Ad Agency she works for sends her to a small town to work on a Christmas marketing campaign.

To no one’s surprise, she is sent to the exact same small-town Jamie grew up in. They run into each other at the train station, where Jamie’s family is ecstatic to see them both. After some confusion, Emily realizes that Jamie never told his family that he had broken up with Emily. Not wanting to cause a scene, Emily goes home with Jamie and his family and speaks to Jamie privately. He assures Emily he will tell the family about the in the morning, and Emily reluctantly agrees to spend the night.

As you can imagine, Jamie keeps avoiding talking to his family about the break-up, much to Emily’s frustration. She ends up running into some significant issues with her marketing campaign and is desperate for some help. Her and Jamie strike up a deal. Emily agrees to pose as Jamie’s girlfriend throughout Christmas, and Jamie agrees to get the Governor to come and make a speech in town on Christmas Day as part of Emily’s marketing campaign (Jamie has recently become a speech writer for the Governor). The two spend the next several days touring the town and enjoying time together. By the end of the movie, the two realize they were truly made for each other.

While you feel the Christmas spirit in this movie, it is extremely predictable. They should have named the movie, An EXPECTED Christmas. There is nothing special or surprising about the plot. Bethany Joy Lenz did a fantastic job acting, and even sang a song played during the movie credits. Unfortunately, most of the other acting was subpar. For these reasons, I give An Unexpected Christmas a 6.5/10.