Here's another casual holiday movie that features two very familiar faces.

Catherine Howard (Julie Andrews) and Robert Woodward (James Garner) have lived in the same area for years, without ever meeting one another. How and why would they have met, anyway? Catherine is a pediatric cardiologist who spends a lot of time in the hospital. Robert is a building contractor who spends a lot of time at the work site. Yet the two strangers finally run into each other when they happen to be at the same place at the same time on a wintry Thanksgiving day. Catherine offers Robert a ride home. But the snow has been piling up, and their car goes off the road and gets stuck. The duo has to find refuge in an empty cabin for the night.

Already, our two characters are obviously mis-matched. Their conversations alternate between being polite and enquiring to being snarky and insulting. Both make certain assumptions about the other. And because of their circumstances, they don't have a lot of expectations for seeing each other after this encounter. They may meet for breakfast on the following Sunday, though. Still, after the storm clears and they are rescued by Robert's family members, Catherine and Robert say their goodbyes and go their separate ways.

The secondary storyline concerns Robert's family, which is under serious stress. His wife, Marybeth Woodward (Sheena Larkin), is not well. Their grown daughters, Lori (Patricia Charbonneau) and Jaclyn (Stacy Grant), are at odds with one another. And Lori is also separated from her husband Jeff (Stewart Bick), who is the father of her two children, too. Can this family survive these challenges and stick together?

As for Catherine and Robert: The question is not if their paths will cross again, but how and when. And that point turns out to be an unexpected event on the one hand, and a predictable one on the other. Naturally, the story offers a satisfying ending for all. On Christmas, too.

Where does this holiday tale take place? Other than the presence of the snow, the visuals don't offer many hints at a real location, except that the story is based in an average-sized town. The cars carry Illinois plates. Robert says that he lives in Arlington. But there is no sizable town of Arlington in Illinois, other than Arlington Heights in suburban Chicagoland, and these scenes sure don't come from there. No. The movie was filmed in Montreal. Ah. Now the big stone buildings make sense. So does the amount of snow on the roads.

Because One Special Night was made for television broadcast, it includes obvious blackout pauses for commercial breaks. It is not a tremendously remarkable movie: just a very pleasant and heart-warming one. You may even get a bit chilly watching it, what with the snow and all. Nevertheless: The real treat here is watching two of our favorite veteran actors perform naturally and easily. I mean, if you can't like Julie Andrews and James Garner....