A Christmas Mystery is a holiday-themed movie about a young girl Violet (played by Violet McGraw), who dawns the detective cap to solve the mystery of the missing jingle bells in her town. The film is directed by French filmmaker Alex Ranarivelo (Born to Race, Bennett’s War) and stars Violet McGraw in the titular role. Moreover, the one-hour and forty-minute flick is written by John Ducey.
The complete cast of the film includes Oscar Nuñez, Beau Bridges, Eddie Cibrian, Christoph Sanders, Drew Powell, Lauren Lindsey Donzis, Santino Barnard, Leonardo Cecchi, Alkaio Thiele, Lauren Richardson, Karen Torres, Toby Larsen, Shonte Akognon, and Brian D. Cohen. Furthermore, Reuben Steinberg serves as the cinematographer while Bret Hedlund heads the editing department.
-A Christmas Mystery Review Does Not Contain Spoilers-
The film starts with a slight context about Pleasant Bay, a small town that recovered from the great depression after a young kid found some prosperous jingle bells that changed the fate of all the residents. Now, almost a century later, those bells still bring peace and happiness to the place, until they finally get stolen.
Violet, the youngest daughter of the town sheriff, takes it upon herself to solve the mystery when she learns that her best friend’s dad, George Bottoms, gets pinned as the bell thief. She believes in the innocence of Geroge and forms a team with her sibling to uncover the truth behind the missing jingle bells.
This short introduction of the movie is actually the heart and soul of the feature. And perhaps the only exciting part about this otherwise dull and plain flick, which makes no effort to make you sit through a tedious ninety minutes screenplay. Plus, if by chance (and chance only), you might have watched the trailer before venturing into the flick, then there is nothing more to expect.
The ten-year-ish Violet McGraw tries so hard to carry the entire movie on her shoulder and ends up performing a futile rescue attempt. In fact, at one point I cared more about the candies in the police station, than the forsaken jingle bells.
Although the film does well in hiding the ultimate culprit (at least until the first thirty minutes), it makes no effort in making the hunch intriguing. I also believe that the wanna-be detective Christmas films have taken the Alfred Hitchcock quote “There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it”, in an absolutely reverse manner.
The film lacks the basic innocence that Christmas movies once used to have, and eventually attempts to cover it under a disguise of a heartwarming mystery. Notably, the only feel-good moment in the entire flick was a short yet cheerful performance of Oscar Nuñez.
A Christmas Mystery: Final Thoughts
If you are looking for a heartwarming Christmas-themed movie with a cosy and complete vibe, then I might suggest you look into other places.
You can stream the film on HBO Max. Let us know your thoughts about it in the comment section below.