‘The Christmas Aunt’ Review: Keshia Knight Pulliam only saving grace in an otherwise soppy and cliched drama

Lifetime’s holiday movie ‘The Christmas Aunt’ follows Rebecca Miller (Keshia Knight Pulliam), an overly ambitious artist who puts her career before anything else. Just when she is preparing for the busiest time of the year at work, she receives a call from her sister Courtney, who is seen requesting Rebecca to watch her kids while she and her husband are away on a vacation during Christmas. 

Although reluctant at first, Rebecca agrees to go to Tenessee to babysit her nephew Dan and niece Maggie. However, things seem more complicated than expected for Rebecca when she realizes that the children are finding it almost impossible to get into the spirit of Christmas as their parents are away. 

Rebecca, being the cool aunt that she is, plans 12 days of Christmas for the children. While Dan and Maggie finally begin to feel the festivity, thanks to their aunt’s creativity and efforts, Rebecca finds herself getting closer to one of her childhood friends Drew (Jarod Joseph), who she runs into while visiting her family. While Drew lives a rather simple life teaching children music in school, Rebecca is an extremely career-oriented city girl. 

Despite leading drastically different lives, the two childhood friends start connecting over the little joys of Christmas, and in no time Rebecca realizes that she has started developing feelings for Drew and no amount of denial helps her fight the infatuation. Meanwhile, Drew gets way too emotional about Rebecca and goes out of his way to impress her. 

While the first half of ‘The Christmas Aunt’ offers a decent amount of entertainment by showing the excitement surrounding Christmas and hinting at a fling between the lead characters, the latter half jumps the gun and begins to solely focus on Rebecca and Drew’s relationship, which is mostly driven by confused emotions and denial. 

The plotline drags a bit too much at this point and it wouldn’t take one long to guess what’s going ultimately happen between the childhood friends. But the factors that lead up to it may be a tad bit exhausting and the viewers may relapse into boredom after waiting too long for something to divert the focus from overstuffed emotions. 

However, Pulliam’s acting is something to watch out for, while the rest of the cast has also done justice to their respective roles. With the annual festival only a few weeks away, the festivities and traditions of Christmas are fun to watch. But the drama aspect of ‘The Christmas Aunt’ may not appeal to all. 

‘The Christmas Aunt’ premieres on November 1 at 8 pm ET on Lifetime.