Merry Christmas, Ted Cooper!: Movie Review

An enjoyable and cute movie thanks to the charming and lovable lead character.

Ted Cooper is a great character. A relentlessly positive and optimistic man who greets every day with a smile and every little disaster with a laugh. It’s a bold move naming the movie after the fictional lead, but Robert Buckley makes this work. Ted never comes across as annoying but rather the friend that everyone wants in their life.		2025 Directed by: Jason Bourque Screenplay by: Russell Hainline Starring: Robert Buckley, Kimberley Sustad
Ted (Robert Buckley) is a TV weatherman in Corning, New York. First, this is a real small town, with a population of 10,000; so not sure how it has its own TV station with a full-time meteorologist. But we move on, that’s the type of small thing that Ted would let slide. His co-workers all make fun of him for his string of bad luck around Christmas – it doesn’t bother him, they can make money from the office pool betting on what misfortune will befall him this year. This year, Ted is off to spend the holidays in his hometown with his sister who is running a gingerbread man fundraiser for the local hospital. Ted is injury prone, so the hospital is a natural choice for a setting. Ted does end up in the emergency room for many minor things that absolutely do not require a hospital visit. I also don’t think a doctor is going to fall for a patient who keeps arriving at the emergency room with non-emergencies. Ted, however, is so enjoyable as a character that you just keep putting all these nonsense things in the past. More about Ted: he is friends with every single person in his hometown, even though he hasn’t lived there in more than a decade and only comes back to visit once a year, but he just has that charm. There are people in real life who just naturally are that friendly, and Ted genuinely embodies that. He’s still friends with his old high school teacher and he ends up joining her senior ladies walking group with matching track suits. This movie really is as adorable as it sounds. Of course this is a romance. The doctor is his high school crush who has recently moved back home. As is common course for the Hallmark genre, it’s a slow-burning romance where Ted and Hope get to spend a lot of time together. The obstacle in their relationship is one peculiar scene where Hope gets upset about Ted’s relentless positivity, but then he happily solves that problem one scene later. This movie can’t take a deeper dive into how Ted actually deals with real problems, mostly because it doesn’t have the run-time and that’s not the type of movie this is. But I do think it highlights my main point: Ted is a great character. The fact that he warrants a deeper dive into all facets of his personality is proof that Buckley has brought out all the right surface mannerisms to Ted to make him an endearing character. Generally, Hallmark movies are better when they pick real small towns. Ted’s hometown is Lackawanna, New York, and their geography is at least accurate – references to Corning and Buffalo fit. But they have kept Lackawanna as vague as possible, and pretty much all indoors since it was filmed in Vancouver instead. But, hey, baby steps. As a romance, the pairing between Ted and Hope isn’t necessarily as strong as other Hallmark romances, but Ted could have chemistry with anyone. His optimism generates enduring charm and he makes Merry Christmas, Ted Cooper! a delightful watch.