Title: The Noel diary
Actors: Justin Hartley, Noel Hayden, Bonnie Bedelia
Director: Charles Shyer
Writers: Rebecca Connor, Richard Paul Evans, and David Golden
Genre: Romance, Christmas
My Rating: 7.5/10
The Noel Diary
Jake Turner is a famous and bestselling author, who likes to be alone. His plan was to spend Christmas alone with his dog Ava, but when he gets a call and he hears his mother passed away last week and she left him everything. Jake’s relationship with his mother (and also his dad) wasn’t great and he hasn’t been to the house in years. Turns out, his mother was a hoarder. While he is cleaning up the house, he meets a woman called Rachel. She is looking for her biological mother and she thinks he can help her. Together they go on a road trip and try to find her.
Review
I decided to watch two Christmas movies on the weekend and one of them was ‘Christmas with you’ and that movie was not so great in my opinion, very cringe at some points. But I was very hopeful that this movie would be better and I was right. I don’t even know where to start, because this was a lovely story about a woman finding her biological woman with the help of Jake Turner, who is a famous author.
First I want to be honest, the main character Jake Turner is a very good-looking man. Which is a plus. He also dresses very nicely. So I already fell in love with his character. I mean, a guy who writes and loves to read? That does sound like a dream man to me. And then he also has the cutest and most beautiful dog ever!! I also fell in love with that dog. I don’t know what breed it was, but she was just beautiful.
So far this is the Christmas story with the best story and character development this year on Netflix. Jake Turner is really a guy who likes to be alone and is still mad at his dad about what happened 30 years ago. Rachel, the other main character was already engaged, but I got the feeling she was just with him because he sounds like the dream guy without actually having feelings for him.
There was a moment that was great though. There was a moment where they (Rachel and Jake) had to stay at a hotel/Inn and Jake made the joke: If this were a rom-com, you would only have 1 room left and they had to share it That made me laugh because that is so true. That is always what happens in rom-com movies. So this movie was not only super romantic, but it also had a little bit of humor.
There was definitely chemistry between the two, that was exactly what I was missing in ‘Christmas with you’. One of my favorite moments/scenes was they decided to watch a movie at a park and they were sitting on a bench and Ava, the dog was sitting next to them. It was so cute! I need that kind of relationship! Although, I was wondering how there were not feeling cold because they were literally sitting on a cold bench outside while it was freezing outside.
But I really enjoyed watching this movie! I think so far this is my favorite Christmas rom-com this year on Netflix. Still hoping there will be more new Christmas movies like this one. This movie is based on the book (Click here) written by Richard Paul Evans. https://amzn.to/3F2Ks9r