Wait, wait, wait. Hallmark got Bruce Campbell to star in one of their movies? How in the world did that happen?
One December Night tells the story of the rock duo Bedford & Sullivan, made up of Steve Bedford (Bruce Campbell) and Mike Sullivan (Peter Gallagher). They had a falling out twenty years ago and now they are preparing for a televised reunion concert. However, they don’t get along very well. It’s up to their kids, Jason (Brett Dalton) and Quinn (Eloise Mumford), respectively, to convince them to do the show. Can they put the past behind them to save their future?
I wasn’t really sure what to expect with this one. Both Bruce Campbell and Peter Gallagher are amazing actors. (You should absolutely see Gallagher in the first season of Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist.) But this is still Hallmark. They know how to ruin what should be a good thing. Thankfully, One December Night is just as good as I hoped.
Besides the fact that all of the actors bring their A-game on this one, I think this may be the first music-related Hallmark movie that actually has music in it! And it’s a lot of music! The sub-plot of the movie is about Quinn’s new client, Addison (Jasmine Forsberg), trying to get a foothold in the industry. She sings no less than three songs on her own. Bedford & Sullivan perform two songs themselves. That’s FIVE SONGS. Most music-related Christmas movies barely have one! I love it!
On the bad side, the lip synching is pretty terrible. The songs sound beautiful but the sounds we hear don’t match up with the lip movements very well. It’s so bad that I thought my recording of the movie was out of synch. Even the ADR (where actors re-record their lines in a studio when the actual recorded audio is no good) doesn’t line up right. While it can be annoying, it is a minor annoyance.
Fans of Bruce Campbell and Peter Gallagher should definitely watch One December Night. They are definitely my favorite part of the movie. My second favorite is Jasmine Forsberg’s singing. She has a lovely voice. If you are down for any of that, watch it. If you are looking for the romance, skip it. The romance definitely takes a backseat to the brotherly relationship of the men. We don’t get a lot of that and we honestly could use more. Normalize male friendships!