Karen Kingsbury’s The Christmas Ring Parent Guide

The choice to be good can be more interesting than the choice to be bad. My freshman English professor believed that, and he was right: Being good can be harder and go against human nature. So why struggle? The answer to that question can be what makes a story great.

I’ll bet Christian novelist Karen Kingsbury would agree with that idea, but this new adaptation of her novel The Christmas Ring doesn’t supply enough struggle to make for a standout story.

The Christmas Ring centers on Vanessa Mayfield (Jana Kramer), a Georgia widow whose late husband was a casualty of war in Afghanistan. The story begins with narration telling us that Vanessa lost, and is desperately searching for, a family heirloom—a ring that her great-grandfather found by chance after parachuting into France during the Battle of Normandy. In her search, Vanessa makes the acquaintance of Ben Miller (Ben Hollingsworth), also widowed and running an antique store with his father Albert (Kelsey Grammer). Their meeting is followed by a predictable romance that—you guessed it—eventually comes to involve the missing ring.

OK, there’s no big-city professional woman falling for a flannel-shirted small-town hunk, but it still feels like a Hallmark movie, doesn’t it? That may be because a TV adaptation of the very same story literally was a Hallmark movie just five years ago. But that’s not the only reason. The screenplay, which Kingsbury co-wrote with Tyler Russell, seldom deviates from the predictable. Remember what Chekhov said about a gun appearing in the first act of a play? This is a bit like that, but with a target visibly painted on someone’s back. It’s also full of characters who are meant to be funny and charming, but achieve it only in a way that isn’t quite real, like a couple in a coffee commercial or aliens trying too hard to be human. Everyone is a bit too nice, a bit too jolly, and, as a group, more than a bit too good-looking. Whole montages are spent on baking brownies or building gingerbread houses, without moving the plot. Christian sermonettes and superficial homages to soldiers are sprinkled throughout.

Now, there’s nothing really wrong with all that; it’s harmless. But that’s the problem: For the choice of good to be interesting, it must come from a struggle against bad, both external and internal. You can’t have Oskar Schindler without the Nazis he secretly worked against. You can’t have George Bailey without Mr. Potter. And you can’t have either without the flaws they also find in themselves. In The Christmas Ring, conflicts rarely occur, they never go very deep, and they’re resolved quickly—too quickly. The struggle isn’t enough to produce a satisfying story or create emotional pathos.

This is a nice movie, and it’s a movie you and your kids may very well enjoy watching. Its sets will remind you of a visit to Hobby Lobby, its colors are comforting, its acting is decent (despite Kelsey Grammer’s occasional accent slips), and its niceness is nonstop. But I can’t call it interesting, or memorable, or satisfying. If you decide to see it, enjoy yourself. But only if you want a movie that’s the cinematic equivalent of room temperature vanilla pudding covered with glittery sprinkles and spray-on Cool Whip.

About author

Donald Bugg

Donald Bugg is an actor, singer, composer, choir director, writer, attorney, and retired military officer living in Utah. He is married to a beautiful Canadian, has six children, and has always loved movies.