Stream It or Skip It: ‘An Ice Palace Romance’ on Hallmark Movies Now, Where a Small Town Ice Rink Sparks New Loves and Perspectives on Life

Hallmark Movies Now is continuing to roll out all of its holiday titles in the lead-up to Christmas with one of its latest releases, An Ice Palace Romance. Fans of winter sports may delight in this new title that revolves around figure skating, an old ice rink, and, of course, falling in love. Does this movie starring Celeste Desjardins and Marcus Rosner manage to stick the landing, or is it just a little too cliché for its own good? Keep reading to find out.

AN ICE PALACE ROMANCE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Lori Marshall (Celeste Desjardins) is a Chicago-based journalist submitting to become the new division chief at her company. In order to earn the position, Lori’s boss, Maxine (Tonjha Richardson), assigns her a story about how people are feeling about losing the Ice Palace attraction and its long-running traditions in Lori’s hometown of Greenhill, Michigan. The Ice Palace is set to be razed and turned into a condo-shopping complex instead.

Lori initially turns down the assignment because she fears returning to her hometown, especially the Ice Palace, a place that holds many memories of her growing up as a former competitive figure skater. In fact, it was there that she had her big fall at the age of 16 whilst competing in the Olympic qualifiers, a failure that made her quit skating altogether. But in returning to Greenhill, Lori just may find that the locals of Greenhill, the Ice Palace, and the rink’s owner, single father Mark Johnson (Marcus Rosner), just might thaw the ice around her heart and make her reevaluate what she truly finds important and meaningful.

Through it all, Mark is fighting to save the Ice Palace from smarmy land developer Chad Reynolds (Joey Coleman), refusing to give up the business and building that have been in his family for generations. Can love be found in the midst of all of this work and life drama?

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: An Ice Palace Romance is kind of like a combination of the “single small-town dad with an adopted child trying to revive his failing business that revolves around a winter sport, all while falling for a visiting city woman” plot of recently released Hallmark Christmas movie, A Season for Family, plus a bit of the “former high-level figure skater getting back into the sport after suffering a big public fall” aspect of 1992 sports-romantic comedy The Cutting Edge.

Performance Worth Watching: In my opinion, Shannon McDonough as Jen, the local camera operator helping Lori to capture her story, is the most natural performance in this whole movie. Even though she doesn’t have the most screen time, her easy charm and likability shine through every time she’s featured, drawing the eye and making her a joy to behold.

Memorable Dialogue: “Tonight on Country Lovin, city slicker Lori Marshall may have found her flannel-clad country bumpkin, but is she really ready to trade her Peloton for a pickup truck?” Wow, Ken is very self-aware that he not only is in a Hallmark movie but also that this could describe the plot of most Hallmark movies in general.

Additional honorable mentions for Mark’s quote: “Maybe this is for the best, okay? You’re Chicago, I’m Greenhill, and I’m busy,” and Chad’s “City folk should stick together.”

A Holiday Tradition: Lori’s family usually does yearly gift wrapping, caroling, baking, and a snowball tournament, but are switching things up this year now that they’re spending the holidays in Mexico. Luckily, Lori gets to experience some old Ice Palace and Green Hill holiday traditions instead, including the annual Christmas Ball, tree lighting ceremony, and ice skating tournament.

Does the Title Make Any Sense?: For the most part, yes. Although I don’t know if the true romance is between Lori and Mark as much as it is between everyone (especially Lori) and the Ice Palace, itself.

Our Take: Though characters like Jen and Lori’s friend and coworker, Ken (Kiril Mitev), breathe added life and personality into the story, An Ice Palace Romance ultimately undermines itself as a cookie-cutter Hallmark cliché by reminding us of that fact over and over again. Where the first mention of a city girl getting with a small-town girl felt funny and self-aware, the repeated mentions thereafter of “city folk” and “being from two different worlds” just got to be absurd. As someone who lives in Chicago, I can vouch that the city isn’t overrun with overly ambitious work-obsessed zombies. But city slickers like Chad and Maxine of An Ice Palace Romance are evidently so into work, that they’re willing to screw over small-town individuals if it means they come out on top with a good deal or story. This feels like anti-city propaganda to me!

Speaking of anti-city, it’s a bit baffling that Lori suddenly seems so willing to ditch the job she liked and the Chicago life she was content with to move back to Greenhill and become a skating coach for Mark’s adopted daughter, Zoe (Acacia Hanvelt) while also pursing a romantic relationship with Mark. That seems like a bit of a conflict of interest to me. If the relationship with Mark falls through, won’t Zoe feel caught in the middle?

It feels like there are a lot of unknowns in this movie that were ignored or glossed over, with hopes that we’d all still be on the same page. How is Mark unable to pay for the Ice Palace’s renovations can own a big own with a comically large kitchen he never even seems to use (Lori had to teach him how to whisk eggs, for crying out loud)? Why did Mark decide to adopt a baby when he was a single 20-something, and where is his family or whoever else might be helping him? There’s a lot we just don’t know about Mark. Also, there are several instances where property development and zoning jargon are tossed around, where all the characters seem to know exactly what the others are talking about, but as the viewer, you kind of are just left wondering what the heck is going on. Hallmark movies are usually fun because you can let go of your worries and stresses, and just shut off your brain and enjoy, but that’s hard to do when you have to be suddenly listening closely to hastily mentioned legal and land loopholes that could save the Ice Palace.

An Ice Palace Romance ultimately isn’t bad, but it seems so hard to manufacture charm and whimsy that it’s left feeling a bit empty instead. For that reason, Lori and Mark’s romance was less interesting than the budding one between Jen and her longtime crush, local architect Tyler Douglas (Stuart Fink), because the latter pair has a genuine sweetness and giddy chemistry to their dynamic that actually made you feel invested. Normally, this might not be a huge dealbreaker but when “romance” is in the title of the movie, you kind of expect the main love story to be a bit more compelling.

Our Call: SKIP IT. An Ice Palace Romance is a little too unsatisfying and emotionally hollow to melt your heart this Christmas.