Review: Reba McEntire's Christmas In Tune

Christmas in Tune asks what other films dare not: can two country musicians who used to be in love fall in love again, and at Christmastime, no less? Well, this movie and only this movie has the answer!

Georgia (Reba’s Reba McEntire) and Joe (Smallville’s John Schneider) had a great romance and a great career together until their personal lives fell apart and they split up. Now, it’s up to their daughter Belle (The Vampire Diaries’ Candice King, who for some reason isn’t credited in this on IMDb) to bring them back together—for the troops, of course.

We first meet Reba’s lead Georgia as she finishes filming a music video and then immediately starts taking questions at a press conference, as one does. You know she’s nice, because she wants to make sure all the reporters get a chance to ask their questions, which of course leads to one asking her about her ex music (and life) partner, Joe. Will they ever perform together again? Is a Christmas tree green?

We then meet Joe Winter (yes, his last name is Winter) as he finishes singing an original Christmas song basically a capella at a wedding. This made me laugh out loud. Who would do that, and who would want that? Well, apparently Joe’s friend (who’s marrying a woman who looks about 25) does! Absurd. (Sidenote: Truly everything is a song to Joe Winter. He’ll sing a random phrase or two and then be like “...that’s a song!” even though it was totally tuneless and didn’t even rhyme? But then when you actually do hear the songs they are fine, so I guess he knows what’s up.) Anyway, you think that this might be a story about how Joe is unsuccessful without Georgia, but he actually runs a beautiful brewery (that’s also a venue for shows). Both of the leads have pretty nice lives without each other, if you ask me!

Now Belle—who runs some kind of boutique marketing company that I was initially kind of confused by, but luckily they explain everything a lot—has a conundrum: both her parents want her to visit them for Christmas, but she’s got a conflicting, huge work opportunity. It’s an annual concert for the troops that for some reason is run by an army General, who sends his minion Troy (Justin David) to ask her to get her estranged parents to play the show a couple weeks before Christmas, which is insane. But lowkey ultimatums work, and Belle decides to go ahead and try to trim three trees with one string of lights (I don’t know, I’m trying here!), and parent traps her folks into coming together to play the concert. And that’s where the magic starts!

First things first, Christmas in Tune loves the armed forces, and they take every opportunity to mention that the concert is for them. Honestly just in general, this might have set a record for awkward exposition dumps—characters are often telling other characters who they are to each other and reminding each other of why they are doing a thing in a pretty unnatural way, including my personal favourite line about the concert; “Yeah, that’s that big event they do every year where they raise money for the children of fallen soldiers so they can have a great Christmas”. Glad you clarified it wasn’t to make their Christmas worse!

We know Belle’s love interest and former high school classmate Troy is in the army, because his haircut is no good and he is always in uniform. However, our girl Belle is able to see past that, unlike me. Their romance is fine if you can ignore that they have minimal chemistry. Troy has about the same chemistry with Reba, to be honest. Now that would be an interesting holiday movie!

Everyone in this talks about the past so much that I was really hoping for a flashback scene with Reba and John wearing funny 00s wigs (their heyday purports to have been the early 2000s in this, not the late 80s), but alas, that was not part of their vision/budget.

Executive produced by Melissa Joan Hart (yes!) and Reba herself, Christmas in Tune is pretty cute. Now, full disclosure, I love Reba. I don’t know her personally or anything but she seems like a nice lady who’s a little bit goofy, and I think that’s fun! I hold no ill will towards Schneider, and they seem to have genuine chemistry together, which makes believing the Georgia-Joe romance rekindling easy. I also like Candice King, and while her story is very much second fiddle, she gives a good performance and I loved a couple of her outfits, especially the top that she borrowed from a Victorian baby. And shoutout to the Duke (Norm Lewis) character, who is in a different paisley shirt every scene and who has a very thankless job of trying to produce music with the leads who are constantly bicker-flirting and reminiscing. That’s gotta be exhausting!

I also appreciate that this movie was an addition to a relatively sparse made-for-tv holiday movie subgenre, where people just care a normal amount about Christmas. No one in this is absolutely losing their minds over hideous decorations/family heirlooms, or some kind of baking/tree contest! Everyone just wants to put on a nice show and have a nice little Christmas and no one is being super weird about the Christmas part of it. Refreshing!

With gentle hands and the heart of a fighter, Reba really carries Christmas in Tune. It’s a positive take on a potentially nightmare scenario (getting pressured into spending a lot of time with your ex over the holidays), and I enjoyed it even though the B story is a little dull. Also, whoever staged the house/other interiors in this did a notably good job, everything looked very cozy and Christmassy, even the recording studio.

Fave Quotes:

“If you’re sassy in the army they make you do 50 push-ups”
“You must have loved having a Christmas song named after you”

WTHallmark

We meet Troy’s boss, the General, for basically one scene, in which he asks for a photo with Georgia and Joe and says, unprompted, “Don’t worry, it’s an encrypted phone!”, to reassure them of their privacy I guess, and then he immediately is like “I’m gonna send this photo to the troops!”
At one point Georgia mentions a song she wrote “was a hit for Dolly”. So if Dolly Parton exists in this world, I wonder, does Reba?? Are they aware of each other’s uncanny resemblance?? Food for thought!

Reba McEntire's Christmas In Tune premieres as part of CTV Drama Channel’s 2021 Holiday Movie Lineup on Friday, November 26 at 8 p.m. ET.

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