Stream It Or Skip It?

In a nutshell, Hallmark’s ‘Tis The Season To Be Irish is about an American woman with no roots to speak of who heads to Ireland to renovate a cottage and meets a local man who is somehow more charming than he is hot – and he’s very hot – and she spends the holiday with him and wants to put down roots all over him by the end. This Countdown to Christmas film has a romantic plot that’s both sentimental and sexy, set against the backdrop of the gorgeous Irish coastline.

Opening Shot: A woman decorates a house for the holidays. But it’s not her house; she’s a designer who has flipped a house and is getting it ready for a festive open house.

The Gist: Fiona Gubelmann plays Rose Walsh, a decorator and house flipper looking for her next project. As she dreams about the location of her next house-flipping project, she spots a listing for a criminally underpriced house in Dunclare, Ireland. Recalling that her late mother once backpacked through Ireland and raved about its beauty, Rose calls the real estate broker in Ireland, Sean (Eion Macken) and tells him she wants to buy it sight unseen.

When Rose arrives in Ireland, Sean is the first person she meets and they have a charming meet cute on the street and part ways, as Rose has no idea he’s her realtor. They reunite just moments later at the house, only for Rose to realize the identity of the cute guy she was just flirting with, but Sean’s not happy to hear she’s only buying it to flip it. (The history of it all! The gall of this American to come in and change things! Etc.) The house is also not as idyllic as Rose thought; she had planned to live in it while she renovated it, but when she actually sees the condition it’s in, no roof, no heat, nothing, she realizes it’s unlivable. Sean tells her she’ll need to stay at the Dunclare Inn, the only lodging in town. He also tells her that any renovations she makes have to adhere to the local historic committee’s standards. Sean is, of course, the historic committee.

It takes Rose several weeks to renovate the home but in that time she gets to know Sean (the chemistry is palpable, and he even introduces her to his mom), and makes friends with two other women staying at the inn (American expat Caitlin and English widow Sandy – in a random subplot, it turns out Caitlyn is actually a famous pop star who moved to Ireland to get away from the limelight). Oh, and a local sheep named Lampchop follows Rose everywhere she goes. Though she’s led a nomadic life, since she has no close family, she starts to realize that Dunclare is starting to feel like home. When she gets an offer on the cottage after the renovation, she’s forced to decide if she wants to take it and stay with Sean, or if it’s time to move on.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? Think of ‘Tis The Season To Be Irish as what would happen if Nancy Meyers’ The Holiday was not about a house swap but was only told from Cameron Diaz’s point of view as she visits rural England at Christmas. (And swap England for Ireland, of course.) There’s also the running gag with the rogue sheep that wanders around town that may or may not be a nod to Jenny the donkey from The Banshees of Inisherin. Probably not, but is a livestock cameo required for every movie set in Ireland?

Our Take: They tell you to dress for the job you want, but I have no idea what a person who makes up Hallmark movie titles wears. ‘Tis The Season To Be Irish?? What a name! It tells you everything you need to know about the movie (Ireland at Christmas) and lets you fill in the blanks everywhere else. If you hear me, Hallmark, you know where to find me and I’m open for title brainstorming work. (Looking forward to the sequel, Dingle All The Way, and the unrelated but also set-in-Ireland movie Four-Leaf Lover.)

For serious though, this movie. Fiona Gubelmann and Eoin Macken are the reason this movie works; their characters are both “old,” as in, in their 30s, one assumes, but their life experience is what exposes their vulnerabilities. As Sean, Macken spends a lot of the movie drily poking fun of Rose, but his sarcasm is a mask to cover up the hurt he’s experienced after previous heartbreak. Rose, feeling abandoned by her father (and lonely after the death of her mother) uses her nomadic lifestyle as an excuse to not get close to others. Both characters are a little lost and lonely thanks to their parental issues, and romantically, they’re both slightly damaged goods, but the film never lets things get to dark and tortured. Instead, they realize that instead of fighting their feelings, love is a risk worth taking now that they’ve found one another.

While some of the film’s quirky asides, like Lampchop, the sheep that follows Rose everywhere, are fun, the plot about Rose’s new friend Caitlyn being a secret pop star feels strange (Flavia Watson who plays Caitlin does have a great singing voice, which she uses to perform “Danny Boy” at one point because IRELAND), but it almost feels like she should have a whole movie of her own, because we never explore her character at all. These asides don’t distract from the main plot, though, which is perfectly executed.

Parting Shot: Rose and Sean kiss, and then they take off their coats to take a cold water plunge at the local beach together, a Christmas tradition in Dunclare.

Performance Worth Watching: Hallmark movies contain no sex, almost no kissing, and an asexuality that defies logic in the context of rom-coms. But Eion Macken is one of the best leading men I’ve seen in a movie like this, exuding flirtatious charm and romantic heat in his performance without ever putting the moves on Rose. I don’t know how he does it – some of it could be the accent – but as Sean, he manages to amp up the sex appeal of this movie in a way heretofore unseen in most other Hallmark films.

Memorable Dialogue: “What’s the Gaelic word for house-flipping?”

Our Call: STREAM IT! ‘Tis the season for fun and festive movies that evoke sexy-cozy holiday vibes something ‘Tis The Season To Be Irish achieves from the moment Rose gets on that RyanAir flight to Dunclare.

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.