Movie# 2034 "Sister Swap - Part 1: A Hometown Holiday" (Hallmark)

 Movie #2034 "Sister Swap - Part 1: A Hometown Holiday" (Hallmark) -- I didn't realize that two of my favorite actresses in these Hallmark xmas movies were actually sisters:  Kimberly Williams (the bride in Steve Martin's version of "Father of the Bride") and Ashley Williams.  When I saw they were together in a two part movie, I was excited to see both of them --- excitement waned when I followed the script in the movie --- these two actresses are way better than the story that was told in these films.  I also didn't care for the format --- They told the story by following one of the sisters in this one (Kimberly) and the Part 2 one with the other (Ashley).  As a result, we saw same scenes replayed with a little bit of a tweak because the point of view changed ---- but it took me a little while to figure that out --- and if you are like me and watch quite a few of these films, the format they used caused confusion for me --- I almost turned it off several times because I felt I had seen the film already --- I had but just a little bit of a difference.  It made the story long and I really didn't care about the movie theatre or the restaurant that much --- the movie just seemed to use a lot of stage business to keep the actors busy going from one thing to another and the pay off wasn't worth the wait -- no surprises really....except for the surprise that they didn't overlap well at all.  I would give this one a 3;.5 --- fun to watch the sisters and the way they are comfortable working together, and Ashley is so whimsical of a character, and sometimes Hallmark holds her back, but this one, they let her go and she's the delight of both films really.  Story, not so good.

"SISTERSWAP - PART 1:  A HOMETOWN HOLIDAY"    hallmark     2021

two sisters and a holiday to remember --- (that's all IMDB wrote)

I would have added:  Part I focuses on Kimberly, who usually runs a restaurant in a place about 2 hours away (just a guess) , switches places with Ashley, who works with her folks at the hometown bakery.  Instead of worrying about the bakery, though, she worries about the movie theatre that her uncle dave owned --- she and her son and of course a good looking guy and his daughter help her out with the effort.

Director:  Sean McNamara

Writers:  Erik Patterson, Jessica Scott, Claire Boyles

Stars:  Kimberly Williams-Paisley, Mark Deklin, Ashley Williams