Is this based on a book? This movie feels like it was based on a book.

Nicole (Torrey DeVitto) lost the love of her life, Alan (Matthew James Dowden), in a snowy car accident. A year later, she is arranging to sell the house and business they owned together. She hires Joe (Dylan Bruce) to finish the renovations on the house so it can be put on the market. With the help of her grandfather (Patrick Duffy), Nicole learns how to deal with her grief.

One of the reasons I asked if this is based on a book is that the title makes no sense. As far as I can tell, there was no promise in The Christmas Promise. It’s even a stretch to say that she’s promising to live her life instead of wallowing in grief. There is just no promising going on here.

Despite the lack of promises, it is a cute movie. It would have been nice to actually see a little more of Nicole’s grief. She will frequently say she is sad but she doesn’t look very sad. They could have easily done a voiceover of sorts where she maybe cries herself to sleep or if she got lost in thought looking at his spot on the bed or something. The way her grief is played works, it just doesn’t work very well.

I did like that Joe backed off when he realized how he was kind of manipulating her emotionally. There’s a section where Nicole is texting a mysterious person who now owns Alan’s phone number. She doesn’t realize that it’s Joe and when Joe realizes that he’s been texting Nicole, he removes himself from the situation. This is probably the one and only time I won’t chide a movie for avoiding a simple conversation. Joe was right - Nicole might have thought he was playing with her emotions.

Promise is going to be a difficult one to recommend. Mostly because it is heavily dependent on death and grief. If something like that isn’t going to make you feel bad, then go ahead and watch this. But if a movie about grief is going to make you feel miserable, skip it. It’s good but not that good.