It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Review Date 3/29/2018When a Doctor Nathan (Neil Patrick Harris),, loses a patient , he decides that being a doctor isn't meant for him, and he wants to give it up. He decides to take a vacation to his hometown, and stay with his father (Hugh Thompson).To tell you more would be wrong. However this film is sad but is also a lesson about life and how we deal with "Bad Things" and realizing your own mortality and how you want to live your life.

Ack. When the most entertaining thing in the movie is (direct from Nashville) Blake Shelton sporting a mullet, the movie has serious problems.Starring Neil Patrick Harris, Rebecca Gayheart, Rob Lowe (for a few scenes), and a little bitty Angus T. Jones this movie really should have been better!NPH is a doctor returning to his hometown after losing someone on his operating table. He meets and falls for Gayheart who is the new teacher in town.Too many people in this movie have life threatening medical conditions. The writers needed a does of reality and their conditions and the activities they were doing don't really compute.Skip it - this one was a mess.

OK. When a movie is REALLY bad, I don't watch the whole thing. My threshold for bad movies is usually about 10 minutes---that's all I can take before I vomit, and that's a mess so I try to avoid that. I did watch this entire movie, so that's a plus. My fist suggestion: fire whoever did the casting for this movie. Neil Patrick Harris' "dad" looked younger than he did. Neil Patrick Harris' girlfriend looked way older than he did. Rob Lowe's character looked younger than Neil P. Harris'. Lydia, Neil's dad's girlfriend, looked way older than Neil's dad. The only person who was cast well was Angus T. Jones as Charlie. He looked the correct age. His "dad" looked more like his grandpa, however. Again, fire that caster. Cinco de Mayo is NOT Mexican Independence Day. You have just spread another round of incorrect information that thousands will now be sharing and it results in an entire generation remaining ignorant. Cinco de Mayo was merely a battle. Mex. Ind. Day is September 16. Another point: when Neil P. Harris gets to the hospital and sees the boy that had been in the accident on the gurney, a gift falls out of the boy's pocket. Neil picks it up and puts it in his own pocket, and then we never see that gift again. Was something cut out of the movie? They made such a point of him picking it up that I felt sure it contained something important that we would see again. Not so. Cutting room floor? The writing could have been tighter. Such flawless and witty repartee does not come out of normal people's mouths. No one stuttered, no one cleared their throat, no one made a mistake. Unbelievable. My husband said it's the only "feel-good" Christmas movie he's ever seen that left him not "feeling good"---the child dies in the end. No blessing there! My husband was so depressed. It was exhausting to try to cheer him up. The movie was filmed well---it didn't have that "cheesy" look and feel that so many budget movies have. It also obviously did not have a boiler-plate plot, and the settings were very pretty. Again, this movie was not awful, but it could have been so much better had the producers done a better job with casting, more believable writing, and maybe a happy ending for everyone. Charlie's dad got no blessing, and he's the one that gave up the most.

My only complaint is the scene where the elementary school teacher teaches a chapter on Mexico. Her 'Mexican' costume is cultural appropriation at its worst and her facts are wrong. Cinco de Mayo is not Mexico's Independence Day and it's not a big holiday in Mexico. That almost ruins the entire movie. Technically this movie is a sequel to The Christmas Shoes, but all the relevant information from The Christmas Shoes is mentioned in this movie anyway. The Christmas Shoes is extremely depressing and boring, with terrible acting to boot, so skip it altogether. This movie, on the other hand, has great writing and great acting. There's a guest performance from Blake Shelton and NewSong, but it's not cheesy because the concert is a fundraiser that is relevant to the plot. The movie is about a transplant, so it's tragically realistic, but it's written in a touching 'everything happens for a reason' way.