The defence The Sentimental Softie
“Sincerity is not manipulation.”
The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.
Back to trending 
The Noel Diary
Romance · Comedy · Drama · 2022
Cleaning out his childhood home at Christmas, a novelist meets a woman searching for her birth mother. Will an old diary unlock their pasts — and hearts?
Movie details
The Noel Diary
2022 Romance · Comedy · Drama 1h 39m
Critical arithmetic
One number, for now.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
TMDB
6.3 / 10
Community rating
Cleaning out his childhood home at Christmas, a novelist meets a woman searching for her birth mother. Will an old diary unlock their pasts — and hearts?
CriticWise case file
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over The Noel Diary?
For the defence
The Sentimental Softie
“You came to feel something, and you will.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Cool Ironist
“Feeling things is a little embarrassing.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Taste neighbourhood
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
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Jingle Bell Princess
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A California Christmas: City Lights
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Christmas in Evergreen
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Allie, a veterinarian in Evergreen, reluctantly will spend Christmas with her long-distance boyfriend. Bound for the airport, she has engine trouble, and Ryan, headed to Florida with his daughter Zoe, stops to help. Sure they won’t meet again, they ignore their attraction, and part ways. At the diner, Zoe wishes on a snow globe, and a storm seems to grant her wish.
Love in Taipei
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A young American woman is sent by her parents to a cultural immersion program in Taipei where she begins a new journey of self-discovery and romance.
Lovely, Still
Drama · 2009
A holiday fable that tells the story of an elderly man discovering love for the first time.
Northanger Abbey
Romance · 2007
A young woman's penchant for sensational Gothic novels leads to misunderstandings in the matters of the heart.
Where it lives
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Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Charles Shyer
Written by
Charles Shyer · David Golden · Rebecca Connor
Justin Hartley
Jacob Turner
Barrett Doss
Rachel Campbell
Bonnie Bedelia
Ellie Foster
Essence Atkins
Noel Hayden
James Remar
Scott Turner
Aaron Costa Ganis
Matt Segreto
Jeff Corbett
Ian Page
Court is in session
Put The Noel Diary on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
The prosecution The Cool Ironist
“The strings are showing.”
Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.