Lifetime premieres another original holiday movie on December 15, 2012 at 10/9C. The Real St. Nick stars Torrey DeVitto as Kate, a psychiatrist who is rescued by a man in a Santa suit six days before Christmas. Callard Harris plays Nick Clause, the young man who truly believes that he is Santa Claus. As Nick spends the next six days in the psych ward of the hospital, he begins to show the kids and adults the true meaning of Christmas and leaves everyone wondering if he really could be Santa Claus.
Unlike the last Lifetime movie I reviewed, All About Christmas Eve, The Real St. Nick was badly written and badly acted. As you can tell from reading my synopsis, this is not a unique plot by any means. Unfortunately, The Real St. Nick offered nothing new to the story, all the way down to the ending. The beginning of this movie seemed to be stolen straight from The Wedding Planner except that the person being rescued turned out to be the doctor. From there, the story introduced ridiculous characters. I am looking directly at you Spaulding. It also had to be one of the most unprofessional hospitals I have ever witnessed on TV and that includes Grey’s Anatomy. What administrator of a psych hospital tells the patients he is tired of them making noise? What administrator of a hospital locks up a patient because he wants all the attention to be on him? At first I believed they were making Spaulding out to be the evil villian or the Scrooge. However, it was so badly executed, he just looked like a self-absorbed idiot, harmless at that.
The only believable and well acted character was that of Kate. I am not surprised after having seen Torrey play a range from psychotic Nanny in One Tree Hill, to conniving sister in Pretty Little Liars, to the helpful but with an alternative agenda doctor on The Vampire Diaries. Unfortunately for Torrey, she still had to deliver the lines as written. This left the viewer wondering where she got her psych degree.
The Real St. Nick is supposed to be a feel good, true meaning of Christmas, type story. For me, it was more of any annoying, unbelievable time waster. Just when you felt good about something, something absurd or entirely unrealistic happened to ruin it. Perhaps that is why Lifetime is airing this one in a later spot.
If you tune into The Real St. Nick, come back here and let me know what you thought. Did it make you get in the Christmas spirit or did you have to turn it off? I would love to know what you think.
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