It’s great to see Sarah Drew grow as an actress, writer and producer. And again, Brian Herzlinger films, I’ve enjoyed every single one of them. Again, when I see these two names show up for holiday films, I know I’m in for an entertaining evening. And when they work together, the results are fantastic. Overall, “Reindeer Games Homecoming” is highly recommended!
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TITLE: Reindeer Games Homecoming
FILM YEAR: 2022
DURATION: 97 Minutes
CHANNEL: Lifetime
Directed by Brian Herzlinger
Written by Sarah Drew
Executive Producers: Sarah Drew, Margret H. Huddleston, Timothy O. Johnson, Stephanie Slack
Edited by Alvin Campana, Gloria Tong
Production Design by Joey Gunn
Art Direction by William Mood
Starring:
Sarah Drew as MacKenzie Graves
Justin Bruening as Chase Weston
Brian Sills as Simon Cook
Dorian Giordano as Jeremy
Ava Cheung as Kit
Vanessa Burns as Serena
For day 39, our latest holiday film is the 2022 Lifetime holiday telefilm “Reindeer Games Homecoming” directed by Brian Herzlinger and written by actress Sarah Drew.
When it comes to Lifetime holiday films, I have to say that one should always keep an eyes out on films directed by Brian Herzlinger and starring Sarah Drew.
Herzlinger is known for directing the more higher budget, higher quality holiday films for Lifetime, while Sarah Drew has slowly become one of the actresses making noise for her notable appearance in the holiday films “Twinkle All the Way” (directed by Herzlinger) and “Christmas Pen Pals” (both Lifetime) and the 2020 Hallmark film “Christmas in Vienna”.
In this film, Drew stars alongside her former “Grey’s Anatomy” co-worker Justin Bruening (“Grey’s Anatomy”, “Sweet Magnolias”, “Good Behavior”), Brian Sills (“Twinkle All the Way”, “The Holiday Fix Up”, “Santa’s Got Style”) and more.
In this film, it’s time for the annual “Reindeer Games” which MacKenzie will be competing in. MacKenzie is involved in the Harrison Falls’ fundraising of keeping the games alive, something her father used to do before his passing.
She is now a high school science teacher and still hangs out with her childhood friend Simon Cook (portrayed by Brian Sills) who is the school principal and the “Reindeer Games” host. But to their surprise, Hollywood star Chase Weston (portrayed by Justin Bruening) is back at home at Harrison Falls to help his sister (who is giving birth) and also visiting his nephew Jeremy (portrayed by Dorian Giordano), a student of MacKenzie’s.
For Chase, while he is appreciated by Harrison Falls as a star who came from a small town, Chase is having a hard time and hasn’t had a major role in quite sometime and hopes his agent can get him a role in an upcoming film, which would be big for his career.
But as Chase returns back to Harrison Falls for the holidays, it rekindles love that he had back in high school for MacKenzie. And somehow he finds himself drafted into MacKenzie’s team for the “Reindeer Games”. But for MacKenzie, it has been rough, as she is intelligent and was supposed to be a doctor, but with the death of her father, she decided to stop her residency and stay home at Harrison Falls.
But what happens when these two see each other in many years. Can a relationship develop during the Reindeer Games?
For the most part, I think that Sarah Drew has continuously amped up her performance in holiday films. For this role alone, she feels much more free and it made for an entertaining and fun performance.
But also growth in the holiday telefilm showcase. Similar to Lifetime holiday queen Melissa Joan Hart (who stars, directs, produces, writes for Lifetime holiday films), Sarah Drew in a short amount of time, established herself in starring high quality production holiday telefilms and each one has been great. She wrote this film and is the executive producer. For 2023, she wrote and executive produced “A Cowboy Christmas Roamnce” starring Jana Kramer (another person who is really doing well for Lifetime) which I will probably review next year.
So, in a way, it’s great to see Sarah Drew grow as an actress, writer and producer. And again, Brian Herzlinger films, I’ve enjoyed every single one of them. Again, when I see these two names show up for holiday films, I know I’m in for an entertaining evening. And when they work together, the results are fantastic. Overall, “Reindeer Games Homecoming” is highly recommended!
