Every year, Hallmark Channel puts out a new film in the Holiday Touchdown franchise – this year it’s Holiday Touchdown: A Bears Love Story – which features fans of a storied football franchise falling in love. These movies combine two great American passions: breezy cable romances and the NFL, and past installments have featured the Kansas City Chiefs and the Buffalo Bills. These films usually star some of the network’s most recognizable faces, in this case Lyndsy Fonseca and Robert Buckley, as well as a smattering of impressive co-stars (in this case, four-time Oscar nominee Marsha Mason). This one is worthy of a spot on your must-watch list of holiday movies.
HOLIDAY TOUCHDOWN: A BEARS LOVE STORY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: Avery (Fonseca) is a freelance journalist visiting her mom and stepfather in Chicago for Christmas. After a transient childhood, Avery is now based in New York, so when she arrives in Chicago and learns her mom has become a massive Chicago Bears fan (who runs a sports bar with her husband), it comes as a surprise because she didn’t grow up caring about football. While at the bar one day, Avery meets Matt (Buckley), a firefighter with whom she has instant chemistry, but since she’s just visiting, she doesn’t really engage. But when Avery receives an unexpected work assignment writing a profile of a massive Bears fan for the Chicago Herald, their worlds collide because it turns out that massive Bears fan is Matt’s grandmother, Darlene (Mason). For Matt’s family, football is religion, so right away, the two are not quite on the same page (Avery refers to herself as “Switzerland” when it comes to rooting for a team). But as with most Hallmark romances, that initial friction (which is really just gentle ribbing and flirtatious banter) turns into romance.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of? It sort of goes without saying that this film is reminiscent of Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story and Holiday Touchdown: A Bills Love Story.
Performance Worth Watching: Hollywood legend Marsha Mason lights up the screen as Darlene, a perpetually optimistic sports fan who tries to play matchmaker between Matt and Avery. (And if you’ve seen previous installments of the Holiday Touchdown movies, keep an eye out for Abraham Benrubi, who makes another appearance in this film as Santa Claus.)
Our Take: If A Bears Love Story wanted to just be a cute holiday romance, it would be over in 30 minutes. Once Matt and Avery start spending time together so she can research Darlene, their connection is clear and undeniable and happens early on. But the rest of the film is a love letter to the Bears, to the communal appeal of football fandom, and to the city of Chicago. You don’t even need to be a Bears or football fan to enjoy that aspect; as with every Hallmark movie, the world created within the film is one where everyone is warm and kind, accepting and inviting. The community rallies around Matt and Avery to get them to see that they’re meant for each other, and you can’t help but want to be a part of that community, which is what makes these movies so appealing; if only the real world felt this welcoming.
The movie features many Bears-centric cameos from players, wives and staff, as well as a random smattering of stars about two-thirds of the way through; Marilu Henner and Tamera Mowry-Housley make appearances so brief that you wonder whether they just happened to wander on set that day and were told to get to work. But it’s not distracting; rather, it all just adds value to what’s already an excellent entry in Hallmark’s holiday canon.
Our Call: STREAM IT! As with the previous Holiday Touchdown movies, this one builds on Fonseca and Buckley’s chemistry by layering in lots of love for one of the great original NFL teams. That means on top of the charming romance, there are a few bonus surprises and Easter Eggs for football fans and Hallmark fans alike.
Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.