Movie Thoughts: A Belle For Christmas (2014)

 

• Released: November 4, 2014
  
• Directed by: Jason Dallas
• Running time: 1 h 31 min
• Rating 1.5/5

Synopsis

A family adopts a puppy around Christmas time and the children instantly bond with the dog, Belle. However, the father's girlfriend doesn't like the dog and tries to get rid of her. It's a race against the clock for the children to get Belle back before she's put down.

My Thoughts

I review dog movies a lot so reviewing a Christmas dog movie was bound to happen sometime if I haven't already by now. And boy is it a pretty bad one. Here's a plot summary.

There's a family whose wife/mother died last Christmas. The father and children (boy Elliot and girl Phoebe) are still grieving, however they are allowed to adopt a shepherd mix puppy, Belle, much to their joy. Especially shy Elliot forms a strong bond with the animal over just a short span of time. Dani, the father's girlfriend, wants the dog gone and brings her to a kill shelter, tricking them into thinking Belle is dangerous and has to be put down. The children are soon onto the fact that Dani is behind Belle's vanishing, but the father wants to hear none of it. So Elliot and Phoebe gather their neighborhood friends, trying to track down wherever Dani took Belle before the poor pup is put down. You can probably guess the ending form there. Belle is saved, Dani is caught to be a liar and dumped by the father, and the family lives happily ever after with the dog.

God, this movie was bad. Like, not the worst or anything, but still bad. It has elements that can work and be the makings of an emotional story, but this execution is definitely not it. 

The characters are written like they're cartoons. And I get that it's a children's movie, but if you want to do live action you'd expect at least a little bit more realism. Characters here usually act pretty exaggerated with very little nuance. Dani is exaggeratedly evil, Malcolm is over the top sassy, etc.

Also, the child acting. It's...not good. I definitely think that Phoebe is the worst here, but some of the other children also often just had weird inflections where it felt like they were reading off a script or something. And their writing also isn't good. The only kid I kind of liked was Elliot because he's about the only character aside from maybe his father who acts a bit subdued and not over the top. But others like Phoebe and Malcolm just feel like they're either forced to overact.

Stuff also doesn't make sense in this film. There's no way you can convince me a shelter, even a kill shelter, can be convinced that a puppy like Belle needs to be put down within the span of a minute. And what prompts her to be put down? A lie that supposedly she killed a bird. Look, I don't see outside cats being put down en masse despite killing a lot of birds. Yet Belle (supposedly) killed a bird and that's the reason she's going to be put down? Like, couldn't Dani at least think of a lie that Belle attacked her and bit her or something? And faking some bitemarks or bandages? Something that's at least the tiniest bit convincing? And the shelter guy barely even reacts, either. He goes from "there's no way we're putting down a puppy like that" to instantly putting Belle on the to-kill list when a bird death is mentioned. Supposedly this is because he's a bird lover as you can figure out through context, but he doesn't even react emotionally to the bird thing at all. He just coolly is like "okay I guess we'll kill her after all" and then just moves on. Logic, where are you?

Another thing of note is how this movie is supposedly about the bond between these kids and their dog, but they barely get to spend any time together before Belle is taken away. So we don't see the strong bond between the kids and Belle. Belle also just has no personality whatsoever. She's just any random dog you could come across. She's barely even in the movie because she's stuck at the shelter for so long. She feels more like a plot device than an actual character the movie is supposed to center about.

Also, this movie has a weird ongoing theme of characters looking at something off-screen and then the movie never actually showing it. There'll be a scene where the characters are like "look at those houses/that garden" and it shows them looking. But then it doesn't proceed to show what they're looking at at all. Feels cheap and like they couldn't even afford an extra shot of a back garden and a suburban street.

So yeah, bad movie, I'm sorry to say. It has elements that could make for an emotional core, but the bad character writing, overacting, bad child acting and the way things were handled just pretty much ruined it.