Hallmark Review: 'A Godwink Christmas: Meant for Love'

Alice Marina (Cindy Busby) is a woman in Minneapolis who comes from a large family and is working to preserve the legacy of the family store by taking over ownership. Jack Totah (Benjamin Hollingsworth) is a travelling businessman from Dublin, Wisconsin whose only family is his uncle Nabeh (Barclay Hope) and who, like Alice, has a love for Christmas. The two strangers find themselves meeting unexpectedly when a misunderstanding leads them to spending a night together at a gala, and when the two realize they're both set to attend the same wedding, another freak occurrence results in the two travelling to the event together.

While Jack is initially convinced his career is too hectic for him to settle into a relationship and Alice is annoyed at her mother Olga's (Kathie Lee Gifford) attempts at matchmaking, neither can deny the connection that's sparked between them. But as Alice and Jack's relationship blossoms and the two bring out positive change in each other, Alice is hit with devastating news. Will the revelation be enough to put a stop to Jack and Alice's relationship--or will another series of inexplicable coincidences keep them together?

Last year, I reviewed A Godwink Christmas, a film which struck me as a rather bare bones Hallmark feature that was only slightly spared by a competent cast that did all they good to liven it up. When news of a sequel reached me this year, a part of me wanted to avoid it after how underwhelming the first film was--but thankfully, completism inspired me to give it a watch. To my wonderful surprise, A Godwink Christmas: Meant for Love turned out to be a vast improvement over its lackluster predecessor and really struck a chord with me due to how much heart it has.

Much of this film's success over the original film comes in the form of Alice and Jack's relationship and the film's titular concept of Godwinks--both of which are developed quite a bit better than in the original film. While the romance between Paula and Gery in A Godwink Christmas felt rushed and underdeveloped, the romance between Alice and Jack is put under a more meaningful spotlight, allowing us to bear witness to their budding relationship and how it changes them both for the better. While the Godwink concept was a relatively minute point in A Godwink Christmas, Meant for Love takes the concept and runs with it, allowing Godwinks to unfold in more ways than one as the story progresses. As a whole, Meant for Love takes the true love story that serves as its inspiration and allows the romance and emotions of it to blossom; something that was sorely missing from the first film.

Cindy Busby and Benjamin Hollingsworth give strong performances that, unlike Kimberley Sustad and Paul Campbell from the original film, aren't stifled by a story that gives them little space to develop their characters on their own or as a couple. From the instant Alice and Jack meet, Busby and Hollingsworth prove to have almost flawless chemistry as fast friends who share an unspoken attraction to each other, with the film's progression having them slowly build onto that chemistry as it morphs into something deeper. This not only makes their relationship believable, but also makes it believable when Alice and Jack both end up having a positive influence on each other--resulting in the scenes where Alice and Jack open up to each about their struggles being especially heartwarming.

Individually, Busby and Hollingsworth continue their strong performances by selling Alice and Jack's individual struggles in regards to family, life, and love. While both Alice and Jack have a standard Hallmark Protagonist problem to themselves (a past failed relationship for Alice, a busy career for Jack), they each also have less-common-for-Hallmark troubles that they both open up about, with Busby and Hollingsworth bringing heartwrenching realism to the pain their experiences leave them with and how it has affected who they are at present. Busby gives an exceptionally powerful performance once she's hit with her third act revelation, which greatly deviates from the usual Hallmark formula, speaks to a great real-world cause, and allows the usually frustrating "Third Act Falling-Out" to feel like a natural story progression rather than a tacked-on conflict. It all culminates in a positively beautiful conclusion that is just about guaranteed to warm the hearts of any viewer.

Rising right up to the heights set by Busby and Hollingsworth are the side cast, all of whom help in their own way to bring heart and warmth to the film. Kathie Lee Gifford (going from playing the original film's heroine's aunt to playing Alice's mother Olga here) keeps her "Overbearing Mother" qualities restrained enough to prevent her from getting annoying, and plays well off of Busby in the emotional third act scene they share together. Barclay Hope and Tom McBeath both bring a comforting warmth to Jack and Alice's respective uncles Nabeh and Charlie, and Tom Butler does the same in his comparatively reduced screentime as Alice's stepfather Edgar. In a surprising development, Alice's cousin Mickey and his wife Sally Ann receive their own romantic subplot, which is developed well and performed with heartfelt emotion by Toby Levins and Hilary Jardine.

A Godwink Christmas proved to be an underwhelming film that seemed to do little justice by the love story that inspired it, so seeing A Godwink Christmas: Meant for Love do exceptionally well by the real Godwinks story behind it was a pleasant surprise. Add to that a well-constructed story that brings a lot of authentic and relatable emotions to life and which gives the film's talented cast a lot to work with, and you have a Hallmark sequel that fully outdoes its predecessor--and is heartwarming and surprisingly deep enough to become required holiday viewing for a lot of people.

Score: 10 out of 10 cruise ship ornaments.