Ceticultsot Beautiful, moving film.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Derrick Gibbons An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

JaynaB You expect nuanced, heart-wringing performances from the likes of Susan Sarandon, Robin Williams, Penelope Cruz, and Alan Arkin. They've got the acting chops for almost any role, and they are a director's dream cast for an ensemble piece with the sweet sadness of this quiet Christmas film. They deliver. Sarandon has seldom been so luminous, Cruz so vulnerable.But Paul Walker? It starts off as a familiar role - the cop, the blue-eyed good guy - and rapidly moves beyond that stereotype into territory and emotional range I honestly never though he could traverse. No car chases, no punch-ups, no us-versus-them and emerging triumphant over evil. This role, in this movie, shows where he could have gone, to become one of this generation's great character actors. In that stellar company of actors, he was not outmatched.Oh, yes, and the script is pitch-perfect. Each separate plot is internally credible and consistent, each looped through at least one other like garland around the holiday tree, all gleaming gently in the glow of many heart-warming lights.Prepare your hankie. You'll need it.

SnoopyStyle It's Christmas in NYC. Divorced publisher Rose Collins (Susan Sarandon) struggles to survive the loneliness of the holidays. Her mother is in hospice with Alzheimers. She goes on a date with the much younger Marco from the office. Mike (Paul Walker) is a cop who is battling jealousy over his girlfriend Nina (Penélope Cruz). Mike is stalked by kindly and possibly delusional waiter Artie Venzuela (Alan Arkin). Jules (Marcus Thomas) has a plan to hurt himself so that he can attend the Christmas party at the hospital to relive his best Christmas as a kid.Screenwriter David Hubbard doesn't have much to his credit and Chazz Palminteri is not known as a director. They are able to gather some great actors but the various stories don't pull me in. Sarandon is somewhat interesting but I don't find the other stories that compelling. Paul Walker really bugged me. The movie moves very slowly. I feel a lot like Mike impatiently waiting for Artie's explanation. Strange or unlikely things keep happening that throws me for a loop. Loneliness at the holidays is an interesting theme but I'm not thrilled with this movie.

sixpence1106 Even though it was a few days after Christmas, I decided to stay in the spirit and watch a Christmas movie. When I saw the cast, I figured it had to be a good movie. As I started to watch the movie, it wasn't quite what I expected. It was a bit maudlin. I wasn't sure if I wanted to continue watching. I really hate giving up on a movie so I continued to do so. I was so glad I did. The cast was amazing and I loved how the stories intertwined. It was a little strange watching Paul Walker in a movie, so soon after his passing and found it rather heartbreaking. The stories themselves at times seem agonizing and painful, but somehow they managed to end the movie showing that there is always hope. I really enjoyed the movie and would recommend it to anyone who loves wonderful acting and interesting story lines. One of the best movies I've seen in a while.

jc-osms With some decent star power in the acting stakes I expected more from this confused mish-mash of a Christmas movie. The idea of entwining different individual stories into one isn't original but I thought that with a Yule-tide twist it might have come together better than it did.As usual, in the timeworn trail of George Bailey, we get a bunch of sad people at Christmas time needing a seasonal miracle to get them happily into the holiday spirit. However some of the stories are so slight and trite, they barely register, like the young man who deliberately gets himself hospitalised because he remembers a happy childhood Christmas there, away from his selfish parents, while in another bizarre episode, Alan Arkin is wasted as an old widower who tries to connect with a young cop, (Cruz's fiancé) telling him he's the reincarnation of his late wife.The main stories of lonely divorcée Susan Sarandon, with her Alzheimer's suffering mother meeting up with Robin Williams defrocked priest and Penelope Cruz as a young bride-to-be struggling with the jealousy of her fiancé, just about pass muster, but the movie falters when the stories shift focus, plus the editing is very poor. To give just one example, after Sarandon and Cruz fortuitously hook up early on in the piece, they opt out of the latter's family Christmas dinner, head to a café for what you'd expect to be a heart-to-heart chat, but which we actually never see happen and in fact they don't even meet up again. Indeed, the film doesn't really bring the five stories together at all, so that despite some decent acting by the principals it fails to gell and really transport the viewer into the Christmas spirit, even with some nice wintry New York city-scapes in the background.