The Noel Diary review

The Noel Diary has a lot of necessary ingredients for a warm Christmas romance drama, but a few issues hold it back slightly from writing home about.

Acclaimed novelist Jacob Turner (Justin Hartley, Senior Year) is celebrating another the completion of successful book tour.

While his Christmases are usually spent kicking back and relaxing with his dog, Jacob gets the news that his mother has died and he’s got to return home to settle her affairs.

This was a smart role for Hartley, who’s developed a strong following playing the complicated Kevin Pearson on This Is Us. The role isn’t a major departure from a Kevin storyline and there’s no real need to shake things up for a romance drama.

After reconnecting with an old family friend (Die Hard’s Bonnie Bedelia), Jacob begins the hard challenge of cleaning out the family home.

Jacob’s findings are of particular interest to Rachel (Barrett Doss, Station 19), who believes her birth mother used to work for the Turner family.

While not the most exciting meet cute, Hartley and Doss have an undeniable chemistry that makes this search for clues of Rachel’s origin worth following.

After uncovering a few leads — namely Rachel’s mother’s diary — the journey takes them to Jacob’s estranged father, Scott (James Remar, Black Lightning).

Director/co-writer Charles Shyer occasionally gets distracted from what should be a simple linear romance drama path. The Jacob/Scott reunion would play a lot better if Rachel wasn’t treated like such an afterthought literally sitting in the car or waiting outside with the dog.

It’s not like the diary needed to be some buried treasure, but the “quest” seems somewhat anticlimactic.

Screenwriters Rebecca Connor, David Golden and Shyer adapt Richard Paul Evans’ 2017 novel though the transition to the small screen isn’t always seamless.