This movie might actually break a few Christmas movie rules. It at least makes the ‘rules’ interesting.
Annie (Kimberley Sustad) is a family lawyer whose parents own a local cafe. William (Paul Campbell) works at his father’s development company that is planning on demolishing the cafe. She needs him to save her family’s business. He needs her to get his father off his back.
Surprisingly, Sustad and Campbell actually wrote this movie. Usually the actors don’t have such a close relationship with their characters. I think that having the writers (who are legitimate actors on their own) play the main characters was kinda brilliant. They bring a life to Annie and William that most Christmas movies lack.
Christmas by Starlight is quite adorable. Annie has this sort of childlike spark in her while William is the “my parents were distant” businessman. Normally, movies make this ‘childlike spark’ more childish than childlike. Here, Annie does things like wearing Christmas sweaters to a casual business Christmas party, dancing around her living room with her dog, and sneaking off to the coat room to eat a granola bar when William takes her to a fancy French restaurant for a client lunch. Things that a normal human being would do. (Well, maybe not ‘normal’…) Her actions offset William’s lack of Christmas spirit well. Instead of him thinking she acts like a kid, he just thinks she doesn’t know high society stuff.
I would recommend checking out Christmas by Starlight. It’s a cute change of pace from the usual fare.