- Michael Kennedy
- 2023
- Watched: 11/4/23
- Grade: D+
Putting aside the cringe-inducing name change that Roku foisted on the film in a characteristically soulless fashion, (by Christmas transformed to by the Holidays) this is in every way a cute little Christmas movie. Everything about this type of film is determined by the attitude from which it is approached. It is easy to see this, and the prolific genre of which it is a textbook example, as sentimental and half-hearted at best, and commercial pandering at worst. A cynic will in every way be justified by his critiques of this film. The tropeish plotline of the dedicated career woman being drawn back into love and family by the power of Christmas is almost a commandment for this type of film, and one could certainly be forgiven for turning one’s nose up at the whole premise. Likewise, the stakes could be called laughable should they be considered to exist at all.
The truth is this film, and others like it, seem either unconcerned with these criticisms, budgetarily incentivized to stay within the narrow limits of the genre, or are simply as cynically commercial as their critics would accuse. Though the last of these is not beyond the possible, I’ll hope that it is not the case.
To turn to this entry specifically, it is warmly shot and every frame is filled with the Hallmark signs of secular Christmas imagery. The idyllic New York cityscape floats in and out of the story with occasional stops at a Christmas market. Snow, ornaments, Christmas trees and lights, and the soft hum of holiday songs dapple every scene. Wandering in the world of the movie seems to be equal parts Michaels and JCPenny were one to try and quantify the set decorations and costuming respectively. This is not a criticism, simply a statement of the very specific type of impression the movie made upon me.
The movie does stretch its legs a little with regard to the conflicts. Usually, a romantic Christmas movie in this vein prefers to let its audience be comfortable and warm throughout with only minor and extremely temporary character conflicts. Here, there is a mostly successful homage to the tried and true Pride and Prejudice model of the female lead following the wrong love interest while the audience, and the right love interest, wait for her to dramatically notice her error. The causes for the misunderstanding, and the sudden transformation in the character of Geoffry(Howard Hoover) are weak to be sure, and the climax of all the major characters stopping to read an article in real time as it is being written live is an invitation to rolling eyes, but if these things can’t be forgiven with a kiss in front of a fifteen foot, beautifully dressed, Christmas tree, then there’s no forgiving left in the world.
The brightest parts of the movie are certainly its leads as Terri Hatcher and Dan Payne do very well playing off one another, and, despite the occasionally weak dialogue, create a couple that is all right to root for. This is by no means a given in this kind of movie. The secondary characters are serviceable in the main though the role of Max (Shawn Ahmed) is strangely fluid. On the one hand he’ll be framed as trying to lead the board in a new youthful direction only to be shown later in the film as unable to control the board as it moves to remove Norah(Hatcher) from her company. It was almost as though they had originally intended his character to be the main antagonist seeking to oust Norah from the company she had built only to change course later and place that antagonism in a faceless group of board members. This, along with a perhaps overly complicated family structure, a bakery, a charitable foundation, and a sneaky agent trying to move Jack(Payne) over to a lucrative position at a rival publication, amounts to the financial perils of clearly wealthy people which really failed to create any sympathy for me.
One unintentionally funny moment was the matter of Norah going to an indoor skate at the venue which would eventually host her family fundraiser. I am not sure how this scene was conceived, if was just a matter of having the location available and trying to come up with a creative use for it, or if this was the intent all along, but the stunt double and audio dubbing are so painfully obvious that one could do some serious harm to one’s lip from biting it to avoid a discourteous chuckle. I wonder; if Terri Hatcher were unable, or unwilling, to wear roller skates successfully, why they didn’t simply construct the scene around some other activity. It isn’t as though skating was in some way connected to the events of the story at that point.
That bit of minutiae aside, it was a sweet, harmless, and inoffensive movie that was acted well so far as the script allowed and reassuringly predictable. It is comfortable, and reliable, with a few moments of rare character driven conflict. These conflicts do feel at times contrived and are of a kind. The film will not win any awards nor feature prominently in any yearly tradition, but it is warm and clean and a better than average example of the type.
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