The Noel Diary (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?
rating 6/10 User rating 397 votes 63% ❄ Christmas Connection
Christmas serves as the catalyst that brings the two leads together. Jake returns home to settle his mother's estate during the holidays, and the story unfolds across the days before Christmas, with decorated Connecticut towns and seasonal warmth providing the backdrop.
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Our Review
When Netflix dropped The Noel Diary on Thanksgiving Day 2022, it shot straight to the platform's number one spot. That alone tells you something about the appetite for Christmas movies that aren't content to coast on ugly sweaters and cookie-baking montages. Directed by Charles Shyer, the man behind Father of the Bride and Baby Boom, this adaptation of Richard Paul Evans' 2017 novel tries to do what few holiday rom-coms attempt: give its characters actual emotional baggage to unpack alongside the tinsel.
The Noel Diary Cast and Story
Justin Hartley, fresh off six seasons as the endlessly charming Kevin Pearson on This Is Us, plays Jake Turner, a bestselling author who hasn't been home in years. When his estranged mother dies just before Christmas, Jake returns to her cluttered Connecticut house to settle the estate. What he finds there is more than dusty furniture: a diary written by a young woman named Noel, who lived with his family decades earlier.
Barrett Doss, best known as Victoria Hughes on Station 19, plays Rachel, who shows up at the house searching for the mother who gave her up for adoption thirty years ago. The diary might hold the answers she needs. So Jake and Rachel hit the road together, tracing Noel's story through the Connecticut countryside while slowly dismantling each other's carefully built emotional walls.
Bonnie Bedelia rounds out the key cast as the woman they're searching for, and James Remar appears as Jake's father. Both bring a gravity to their brief screen time that the film genuinely benefits from.
What Works About The Noel Diary
The film's smartest decision is its restraint. Shyer, who spent decades directing studio comedies with broad appeal, keeps the tone grounded. There are no wacky misunderstandings, no race-against-the-clock airport confessions, no rival love interest played for laughs. The central mystery of the diary gives the plot a forward momentum that most Christmas rom-coms lack.
Hartley and Doss have genuine chemistry, though it's the quieter kind. Their conversations in the car feel like actual conversations, not screenplay dialogue waiting for a punchline. Hartley, in particular, does strong work conveying Jake's complicated relationship with his childhood. The scenes where he walks through his mother's house, touching objects that trigger memories he'd rather not have, land with real specificity.
The Connecticut locations deserve credit too. Originally planned for Vancouver, the production relocated to Fairfield County during the pandemic, and the switch paid off. The New England small-town aesthetic feels earned rather than manufactured. The streets of New Canaan stand in for the fictional Maple Falls, and the Griswold Inn in Essex doubles as the cozy inn where Jake and Rachel share a pivotal evening.
Where It Falls Short
The Noel Diary's biggest problem is pacing. At just over ninety minutes, it rushes through emotional beats that needed more room to breathe. Rachel's decision to leave Jake and return to her safe-but-uninspiring fiance, Alan, happens so abruptly that it feels like a plot device rather than a character choice. The resolution comes equally fast.
The film also can't quite decide how seriously to take its own adoption subplot. Evans' novel spends more time with the emotional weight of Rachel's search for her birth mother, while the movie compresses it into a few key scenes. By the time Noel herself appears on screen, the reunion feels rushed rather than cathartic.
And then there's the ending. Jake shows up at Rachel's door to confess his feelings, she turns him away, and then she appears at his house moments later. It's the kind of romantic-movie choreography that works only if you don't think about the driving distances involved in rural Connecticut.
Charles Shyer's Final Film
The Noel Diary carries additional weight now as Charles Shyer's last directorial effort. Shyer died in December 2024 at the age of 83, and looking back at this film through that lens, you can see a veteran filmmaker working with a light touch. His career stretched from co-writing Smokey and the Bandit in 1977 to shepherding Steve Martin through two Father of the Bride films, and The Noel Diary shares DNA with those earlier works: a belief that domestic stories matter, that family complications are worth exploring with both humor and tenderness.
It's not his strongest work. But it's a fitting coda for a director whose entire career was built on finding the emotional truth inside commercial entertainment.
Is The Noel Diary Worth Watching?
If you're looking for a Christmas movie that treats its audience like adults, The Noel Diary delivers more than most Netflix holiday entries. The mystery of the diary gives it a narrative hook, Hartley and Doss are likable leads, and the Connecticut setting provides welcome visual authenticity. It sits at 69% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 6.2 on IMDb, which feels about right: solidly above average, occasionally moving, but too rushed to reach the heights its source material suggests.
The film works best as a cozy evening watch with someone you care about. Just don't expect it to linger the way that diary lingers with Jake Turner.
Fun Facts
The Noel Diary is based on the first book in Richard Paul Evans' "The Noel Collection," a series of four Christmas-themed novels published between 2017 and 2021.
Production was originally set for Vancouver, but the COVID-19 pandemic forced a relocation to Fairfield County, Connecticut, where much of the story is actually set.
The crew filmed during a brutal summer heat wave, using biodegradable paper snow to simulate winter across the Connecticut locations.
The house featured as Jake's mother's home is located on Washington Avenue in Westport, Connecticut, not in Bridgeport as the film implies.
Justin Hartley served as both lead actor and executive producer on the film, giving him creative input beyond his on-screen performance.
The Griswold Inn in Essex, Connecticut, which doubles as the Maple Falls Inn in the film, is one of the oldest continuously operating inns in America, established in 1776.
Director Charles Shyer's father, Melville Shyer, was a founding member of the Directors Guild of America who had worked with D.W. Griffith, making filmmaking a multi-generational family trade.
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