Love Hard is the first Netflix Christmas movie I watched this year. Let’s jump right into the review to see how it holds up against the Hallmark juggernaut.

Natalie (Nina Dobrev) has terrible luck in love. She has been able to turn her awful dates into an online column. When her friend, Kerry (Heather McMahan), opens Natalie’s dating app to look for men all over the country, Natalie matches with Tag (Darren Barnet). Unfortunately, Tag lives on the other side of the country. Throwing caution to the wind, Natalie flies across the country to surprise her new beau for Christmas. But all is not what it seems

I haven’t watched Nina Dobrev in anything since The Vampire Diaries in the early 2000s. I can’t say that I was a big fan of her acting there but she seems to do OK here. Maybe it’s because she doesn’t have to do as much emoting. If she’s not angry, she’s flirty. It’s not a big stretch.

Instead, my favorite character was Josh, played by Jimmy O. Yang. He had this adorable nerdy air around him that worked well. He was able to pull off the self-hatred that comes when you don’t belong with the popular group and no one sees you romantically. I think the only other person that pulled off their character perfectly was Althea Kaye as Josh’s grandmother.

Once again, this is a decent movie that is fine for an evening watch but it’s nothing amazing. On the contrary, Tag is very annoying and Natalie is heading into annoying territory too. The best way to watch Love Hard is a relaxing evening where you want something on the TV in the background while you play your favorite game on your cell phone. I’m not sure the movie deserves much more attention than that.

It’s a Christmas bow. A violin bow…not a bow you put on presents. Get it?

Kate (Lucia Micarelli) is a concert violinist. When she injures her hand shortly after auditioning for the philharmonic, she turns to her childhood friend, Patrick (Michael Rady), to help her get her hand back in shape for her Christmas performance.

We have another musician movie. And her family owns a music shop too! The difference between The Christmas Bow and the other Christmas musician movies this year is that Kate hasn’t lost her passion for her art. Instead, her art was taken from her. She is desperately trying to get her hand to function like it did before the accident but it’s taking longer than she would like. It does make a huge difference in the mood of the movie. We see her trying and failing and getting frustrated and I love that. The arts isn’t always passion and want. Sometimes you want to do something and you physically can’t and it sucks. I’m glad that there is finally a movie showing that side.

I quite liked that there are a lot of Asian actors cast in the major roles. We don’t see a lot of non-white actors in Christmas movies. Especially not as the starring characters. Also, Micarelli is actually a violinist and that helped bring a dose of reality.

Overall, the movie wasn’t amazing. Patrick’s character was unrealistic. While I understand that the movie wanted him to be indecisive about his Big Decision so we would want him to stay in town with Kate, he kinda came off more wishy-washy than just indecisive. It was a bit of a turn-off, to be honest. However, I would recommend watching it, if only for Micarelli’s violin performances. She may not be a wonderful actress but she is an amazing musician.