A Dance In The Snow, available now on Hallmark Mystery, is about a single mother who wants to give her autistic daughter a Christmas dance to remember… but she doesn’t realize that her daughter is trying to put on a competing holiday party in honor of her mom. Fortunately, the film is relatively free of wacky hijinks, focusing more on the reasons behind the two women’s festive plans and their desire to pay tribute to the other by making the holiday a little merrier and brighter.
A DANCE IN THE SNOW: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: A box of Christmas decorations and framed family photos is unpacked.
The Gist: Melanie (Erica Cerra) is raising her autistic teenage daughter Jenny (Cha Cha Real Smooth star Vanessa Burghardt) on her own. This Christmas might be Jenny’s last one at home now that she’s a high school senior and applying to colleges, and she has her sights set on a school in California, partly because that school has a great literature department (Jenny’s passion), and partly because in a warm climate like California, Jenny doesn’t have to worry about falling snow, a trigger for her that was caused when she got lost in the snow as a child.
As mother and daughter prep for the holidays, Jenny has decided not to attend her school’s winter ball which is a bit of sensory overload for her, with loud music and fake snow descending on the revelers. Even though Melanie knows that Jenny’s decision is for the best, she’s disappointed because the winter dance is something she also looked forward to. So Jenny and her close friends decide that instead of bailing on the dance, they’ll put on one of their own, something that’s sparkly and Christmas-y in honor of Melanie, but without any of the additions that complicate things for Jenny. What Jenny doesn’t know is that Melanie, along with Jenny’s English teacher Daniel Hartman (Mark Ghanimé), are collaborating to make the school’s dance more accessible and sensory-friendly just for Jenny and any other students with different needs.
As Jenny and her friends – and her new boyfriend, a new neurodivergent student named Will (Dorian Giordano) – plan a dance in a barn on Will’s family’s property, Daniel and Melanie plan an overhaul of the school’s dance in hopes of turning it into a silent disco. Love starts to blossom between Melanie and Daniel, but therein lies the problem. Daniel is Jenny’s most trusted, beloved teacher, and he knows about both secret dances, and eventually he accidentally spills the beans. Both women feel like they were kept in the dark about the other’s plans and tension arises, though it doesn’t last long when they both realize that they were planning their surprise dances to honor each other.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of? A Dance In The Snow is reminiscent of Falling Together, also released on Hallmark this year, where a woman finds love while also finding purpose volunteering at an Alzheimer’s walk. Each film has a genuine feel-good element combined with some light romance.
Our Take: A Dance In The Snow is a sweet celebration of inclusiveness and the normalization of things that, to the outside world, may not seem so normal. Melanie’s biggest struggle as Jenny’s mother is getting the outside world to understand her daughter, and so she takes matters into her own hands to raise awareness of Jenny’s struggles to the people in their community by planning a sensory-friendly dance.
Jenny, on the other hand, may have her triggers, but she’s emotionally intuitive and has no difficulty realizing all that her mom does for her, which is why she wants to put on an event for her mother’s benefit. While the film does include romantic subplots for both of their characters, the real love story here is between a mom and her daughter, and their evolution as women who see one another for who they are outside the context of their mother and child relationship.
Even though the film uses Jenny’s autism and Melanie’s work at a center for neurodivergent kids as a major plot point, it manages not to veer into after-school special territory thanks to the solid acting and the genuine chemistry, especially between the adult romantic leads, Cerra and Ghanimé. The film has a very specific energy that leans more family-friendly than romantic, but it’s also a powerful love letter to parenthood, and the fact that loving parents’ behavior is often mirrored by their observant children.
Parting Shot: Jenny gives Will a kiss and the two of them walk into the falling snow together, no longer afraid of it. They walk over to Melanie and Daniel who welcome them with open arms.
Performance Worth Watching: Mark Ghanimé, who looks like a cross between Michael Sheen and Mark Ruffalo, is one of those leading men who’s charming and rumpled and looks like he’s great at hugs. The actor, who also stars in Virgin River, is perfect for the role as mom’s new boyfriend equally beloved by her daughter.
Memorable Dialogue: “I mean, you guys figured out how to plan two separate Christmas dances so –” Daniel says to Melanie and Jenny, not realizing that neither one of them knows about the other’s dance and he just spilled the beans.
Our Call: A Dance In The Snow is a sweet, family friendly film that may not be one you’ll watch on repeat, but it definitely scratches the itch if you’re looking for warm holiday comfort. STREAM IT!
Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.
The post Stream It Or Skip It: ‘A Dance In The Snow’ on Hallmark Mystery, Where A Mother And Daughter Try To Throw Each Other Competing Holiday Dances appeared first on Decider.
