Stream It or Skip It: ‘Miracle In Bethlehem, PA’ on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries: In Which A Man Named Joe Lets A Woman Named Mary Ann and Her Infant Stay At His Place Because There’s No Room At The Inn

In the new Hallmark Movies & Mysteries film Miracle in Bethlehem, PA, a new mother named Mary Ann is stranded during a snowstorm on Christmas Eve with no place to stay. A hot single dude named Joe offers her a room in his messy house (as messy as a barn, honestly), and from there, they realize that a miracle has been delivered unto them: true love. Oh right, and Mary Ann’s baby. But mostly true love!

MIRACLE IN BETHLEHEM, PA: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Mary Ann Brubeck (Laura Vandervoort), a single woman hoping to adopt a baby, paints a mural in the nursery of her house. As she does this, in voiceover, we hear her exchange messages with a representative named Gabriella at an adoption agency. With each message, Mary Ann learns she’s been passed over for a baby again and again.

The Gist: Mary Ann is a divorced attorney who has always wanted a baby, but has struggled with fertility issues. She’s motivated and professional, your classic city-woman archetype. By contrast, Joe (Benjamin Ayres) is your classic man-child: he plays video games and lounges on the couch in his suburban house, and he gave up his dreams of being a musician years ago, the only passion he ever really had, because his dad got cancer and he had to move home to be with him before he died. When his girlfriend breaks up with him, well, that’s one less responsibility for him to deal with, so it’s no biggie. But what he really needs is some inspiration in his life, a spark to ignite the long-dormant fire within.

A couple days before Christmas, Mary Ann gets word from the woman at the adoption agency, that real angel named Gabriella (cough), that there’s a baby up for adoption in the (little town of) Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, so she drops everything to go get the baby, but as soon as she arrives, she’s snowbound as a result of a blizzard. She and the baby, Natalie, head to the Bethlehem Star Inn, and of course there’s no room there, but the proprieter, a woman named Frankie, takes pity on Mary Ann and asks her brother Joe to take her and the baby in for the night: his house is a real mess, practically a barn, says, Frankie, but it’ll be a safe warm place for the newborn to spend her first night. What turns into a one-night stay gets extended when the weather doesn’t let up and Mary Ann’s car won’t start, and by the time Christmas Eve rolls around, she almost… doesn’t want to leave. Joe has been great with Natalie, and they’ve started to open up to one another about their pasts, and having another adult to parent this baby has been a major help, too.

When Mary Ann learns that the local barn where a big Christmas festival (that Joe’s dad used to run) which takes place on Christmas Eve is in foreclosure, she puts on her lawyer hat to help. And as she stays in Bethlehem, she realizes that maybe what she really needs for her baby is a village that can help her – she’s only been there two days and already they’ve given her so much, and they even caused her to reach out to her own mother, who she pushed away for years. And Joe, who seemed like a lost cause at the beginning? Well, Mary Ann and Natalie have helped him grow up and find purpose and spark after all.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? This one falls somewhere between The Nativity Story and Hallmark’s Christmas Town.

A Holiday Tradition: The big Christmas Eve festival at the town barn!

Does the Title Make Any Sense?: There is an unwed mother with an infant on Christmas in Bethlehem who manages to find a room to sleep in during a snowstorm. It really is a miracle on many levels.

Our Take: I hate predictable, cheesy movies, but I love wordplay and puzzles and hidden meanings, so this movie is really messing with me. On the one hand, it’s a fairly generic romance between opposites who help one another meet in the middle, they become the yin to the other’s yang. On the other hand, it is so jam-packed full of winky Biblical references, that it’s actually pretty funny and fun to decode the movie looking for them. The adoption agent’s name is Gabriella, mother Mary (Ann) has to find a room at the inn, Joe is her love interest…it’s all right there, ripped from the gospels. But then there are quite a few more subtle touches (I’d call them Easter eggs, but I don’t want to mix holiday metaphors) buried in the movie, like the characters named Goldie, Frankie, and Myrtle (for gold, frankincense and… okay, you get what they’re doing here) and .

The main drawback for someone as detail-oriented as I am is trying to figure out if every single thing in this movie is a reference (why is Mary Ann’s last name “Brubeck”? Is that symbolic? Is it a reference to jazz musician Dave Brubeck’s holiday album? Someone help me out of this spiral!) but if you don’t try to go all Beautiful Mind on it, I’m sure it won’t stress you out.

I’ve come to recognize that while every Hallmark romance follows an exact formula, occasionally, there are ones with a twist – a sarcastic female lead, an unexpected flood of pop culture references – details that set them apart and make them a little more interesting. The onslaught of Bible references here is that unique detail, and while the characters are not shy about discussing their faith, the movie reads less like a religious special and is just weirdly entertaining because of how closely it tries to stick to much of the story of Jesus’ birth.

Parting Shot: Mary Ann, Natalie, Mary Ann’s mother, and Joe’s entire extended family pose for a family photo inside the old barn. Instead of “Cheese!” they all yell “Merry Christmas!” and they live happil – well, just go read the Bible, and you’ll know how they live, I guess.

Performance Worth Watching: As Joe, Benjamin Ayres is equal parts immature and totally lovable – even when you want to judge him for being a guy with a Peter Pan complex, you can’t help but like him.

Memorable Dialogue: “I’m glad you came back… I wasn’t ready for you to leave,” Joe tells Mary Ann, who had planned to leave Bethlehem to return to her apartment in the city but returns to Bethlehem to spend Christmas there. “I wasn’t either,” she responds.

Our Call: I’m as surprised as anyone to be saying this: STREAM IT!