Since A Shoe Addict’s Christmas first aired back in November, I was really hoping that Hallmark would re-air this in December so I could watch it. I mean, what Christmas movie list is complete without a Candace Cameron Bure movie? Thankfully, Hallmark came through for me.
Basically, this movie is a sort of romantic retelling of A Christmas Carol. Our girl, Candace, plays Noelle, a department store HR manager who (somehow) gets put in charge of helping plan a holiday gala for the local fire station. (The gala is for the fire station but the department store is footing the bill.) Firefighter Jake (Luke Macfarlane) gets assigned to help Noelle plan the festivities. One night, Noelle meets her guardian angel, Charlie (Jean Smart). Charlie tells Noelle that she has given up on her passions in life - photography and love. So Charlie uses shoes to transport Noelle back in time to show her the past three years of Christmases to get Noelle’s professional and love lives back on track.
Hm. Um. Yeah. Shoe Addict wasn’t as terrible as I was expecting. But that doesn’t mean it’s good either. While Noelle proclaims to love shoes, it feels empty. She continually claims that “every shoe has a story” but doesn’t really tell any stories about her shoes. I suppose we can say that Charlie using shoes to transport Noelle back to important moments in her life as a ‘shoe story’….no, no we can’t say that. Because those moments aren’t about the shoes at all. They are about Noelle saying no to things she should have said yes to. Then there is some shoehorned thing about a cross necklace that Noelle’s mom used to wear? It’s another semi-plot line that is introduced then thrown to the side until it’s needed again. Honestly, it feels like the writers wanted to throw so many things into the movie that they just couldn’t bear to cut any of them.
On the good side, I really did enjoy Jean Smart as the clutzy guardian angel. She seemed to be the most genuine character of the bunch. Everyone else turned their Cheese Factor up to 11. With that said, I’m glad I sat through a Candace Cameron Bure movie. I have seen a ton of commercials for her recent Hallmark movies but I’ve never actually sat through one. Now I feel like I sat through them all! And that is my recommendation - find one Candace Cameron Bure movie that sounds interesting and watch that one. Skip the rest.