Customer Reviews

I'll Be Home for Christmas

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

There are several movies that have this same title, I'll Be home for Christmas and I want to point out that this isn't the theatrical movie with Jonathan Taylor Thomas from Home Improvement or the other TV movie version that starred Courtney Cox from Friends but it is the made for TV version that stars Robert Hays, Ann Jillian and Jack Palance and it is very good and is a Christmas movie/romance story and is about a surgeon played by Robert Hays who had lost his wife about 4 years earlier suddenly decing to go back with his daughter to his small town for Christmas and his father played by Jack Palance and the townspeople want him to stay and take over the hospital but the mayor who also happened to be his high school girlfriend and is played by Ann Jillian thinks everyone is wasting their efforts in trying to get him to stay so his father tries to bring them back together. I really liked this movie and I highly recommend the DVD for anyone who likes Christmas movies and romance books. I don't think this one was adapted from a romance book but it seems like it could have been. I strongly have to disagree with the previous reviewer! I didn't think the female in the love story was too fat at all and it's a good thing that she wasn't the typical too skinny Hollywood actress. 5 stars for this movie and for the actors!

I taped this movie on December 20, 2004 and my wife and I just watched it 2 days ago. Wanting to get through the movies we taped around Christmas more than we had time to watch, we didn't set our expectation too high -- just wanted to clear it from our schedule. However we were very pleasantly surprised. Of course it had 3 of our favorite actors, i.e., Ann Jillian, Robert Hays, and Jack Palance so we figured it should not really be a bad movie. It was a very good movie with good acting by the three and also Ashley Gorrel and many of the townspeople. It was well paced but in a couple of places I had to rewind to get what was said. It is a good movie for family viewing, and for those who enjoy movies picturing relationships.

This is an enjoyable, warm and pleasant family film for anytime to view. The roles were done well. Ann jillian always gives a good performance & does in this role as a hometown veternarian who loves the community in which she lives. She is loved & respected by many. Along comes a widowed father of a young girl back to the neighborhood & his father's (Jack Palance)home as he has encountered some emotional obstacle to his professional ability in medicine. Ann Jillian helps them all to meet the problems ahead and thicken the plot so that the developing story brings high & low moments to a good resolution. How she does it is a good story. I had seen it on TV several times & can look at it again every so often.

This movie took me by surprise. I thought, how can this be ok? Once I got into the movie, and began watching, I was hooked. We know how we want it to end, and finally it does!

A surgeon (Robert Hays) who has lost confidence in his ability and his daughter (Ashley Gorrell,) who has lost the feeling of joy in her life, go back to his home in St. Nicholas, Iowa, for the Christmas holidays and come face to face with their past and fears.
Jack Palance is wonderful as their father/grandfather. Ann Jillian as the mayor/former love interest of the surgeon gives a light to the film which is enchanting. A very pleasant holiday movie.

This isn't a deep or extremely dynamic movie, but it is good and I thought it was fairly well done. You can nitpick over little things, but overall it was worth watching and I enjoy being able to see it whenever I choose. The acting of the lead characters is excellent, including the young girl.
St. Nicholas, Iowa is a small town in need of a doctor or the hospital will have to be shut down. Beautiful Ann Jillian plays the mayor and town vet who is also trying to stitch up an occasional human patient. Robert Hayes plays the town's favorite son who went away and became a doctor. Everyone thought he would return, but instead he married and settled into a job in a large hospital in the city. His wife died a few years ago and now he and his daughter are going home for Christmas for the first time, while he tries to overcome the demons that are shaking his confidence in his own ability as a doctor. Jack Palance is amazing as his father who does what he can to encourage him to reunite with his old high school flame (Ann Jillian). Rather than explain to anyone that he is struggling, he makes up a story about getting a promotion and having to hurry back to work and he runs back to the city, but not to a promotion. Unable to overcome his insecurities in the operating room, he turns in his scalpel for a desk job in administration. Things come to a head when his dad, who came to the city with them for Christmas, needs emergency surgery and his daughter pleads with him to help grampa.
Will the eccentric townspeople of St. Nicholas have to close their hospital? Who will have the honor of being the "grand electrician" who lights the town's Christmas tree on Christmas Eve? And why is Janet, the pig, off her feed? Just a good, old-fashioned small-town Christmas the whole family can enjoy.

This is a great Christmas movie and also a wonderful love story. Ann Jillian is one of the best actresses in the business and shines in the story line. We all would love a chance to go back and get our first love.

This is one of the many really wonderfully "feel goo" Christmas movies. If you don't own it, you need to.

One of my all time favorite holiday movies, hits all the right notes. I loved Ann in this and a big fan of Robert Hays too. Great little movie!!!

I saw this movie years ago and I really enjoyed it, I was glad to see that it is on dvd. But I'm not too happy about the price of it.