I love the Christmas season.  But there are only so many good holiday movies.  And then you start to get into the less good holiday movies.  If you don’t ration properly, you may be watching Earnest Saves Christmas before you know it.

I also am a sucker for romance.  Anyone whose read my stories probably picked up on that.

Which brings us to that special class of movie: the Hallmark/ ABC Made for TV Holiday Romance.  These have, I’ll admit, become my guilty pleasure over the holidays.  And here’s my breakdown of the ones most commonly available.

HOLIDAY IN HANDCUFFS

She: Aspiring artist and waitress struggling with life.

Best Friend/co-consipirator/ token: Janeane Garofalo-lite, and secretly gay brother.

Category: Woman gets man to pretend to be her boyfriend/ fiancé.

Premise: Sabrina-the-no-longer-teenager must join her upper-middle-class perfect family in a cabin in the woods for Christmas, and her parents have made clear that they feel it is time she get her life together with a good job and good man.  But she blows the job interview her father set up, and her boyfriend dumps her, so she has a bit of a nervous breakdown and kidnaps a yuppified Slater from “Saved by the Bell” to play her boyfriend.  Wackiness and romance (if disappointingly little bondage) ensues.

Grade: C.  I really struggled with this one.  They manage to make her nervous breakdown and kidnapping half believable, and the later falling in love part half believable, and there’s decent chemistry between the stars, but it is a pretty difficult suspension of belief that he doesn’t do more to escape, or convince the family of his situation.  And of course, kidnapping is not cute — just reverse the scenario and imagine a guy kidnapping a woman to bring home for Christmas.  But darn that Melissa Joan Hart, I just wanna like it.

Note: In the cast interview, Mario Lopez says he hopes “Holiday in Handcuffs” is one of those timeless holiday movies you can watch year after year with your kids.  So, uh, yeah.

Stars: Melissa Joan Hart, Mario Lopez, Timothy Bottoms

HOLIDAY ENGAGEMENT

She: Aspiring journalist in a dying industry.

Best Friend/co-consipirator/ token: Janeane Garofalo-lite.  There were no tokens, this film is as white as Christmas snow.

Category: Woman gets man to pretend to be her fiancé.

Premise: A young woman who looks like Amy Poehler’s stunt double must go home for Thanksgiving, but her career-minded fiancé just broke up with her and she can’t face her large family’s disappointment, so she hires a struggling actor (who reminded me a bit of Xander from Buffy) to play her fiancé.  Wackiness and romance ensues.  This one technically takes place over Thanksgiving, with Christmas decorations.  The weakest point perhaps seems typical of the genre: when her fiancé breaks up with her she begs him not to dump her, offering to compromise all of her previously stated wants and needs to keep him.

Grade: B.  Does one of the better jobs with the ridiculous premise of fake fiancé.  The deception is mutually consenting, and the movie takes the time to show them actually connecting and getting to know one another, making it believable that they fall in love. Also, she’s a writer, so, sympathy.

Stars: Bonnie Somerville, Shelley Long, Jordan Bridges

 

 

MARRY ME FOR CHRISTMAS

She: Career woman who runs an ad agency on the verge of taking off.

Best Friend/ Co-Conspirator/ Token:  Her best friends are her cousins.  Her co-conspirator is her business partner/ fake fiancé.  There are no obvious tokens in this one — the movie features an all African American cis-het cast.

Category: Woman gets man to pretend to be her fiancé, plus, The perfect man was in front of her the whole time.

Premise: She is guilted into returning home for Christmas after avoiding it/ being too busy for several years, just as she’s on the verge of sealing the deal on her first million dollar account.  She returns home with her assistant to work while there, and they end up pretending to be engaged.  Romancing and family antics ensues.

Grade: B.  The movie had plenty of heart and humor, and played with the typical fake fiancé formula a bit, giving it a couple of twists that added some tension, and made it less predictable and more believable than some of the other movies in this same Category.

Note: “LL Fool J” is now what I call my dog whenever he does something stupid.

Stars: Chace Beck, Dawn Halfkenny, Brad James

 

A CHRISTMAS KISS

She: Single aspiring interior designer working as unappreciated assistant to tyrannical boss.

Best Friend/ co-conspirator/ token:  Artistic black friend, and bonus white friend.

Category: Woman who is everything man is looking for is right in front of him the whole time.

Premise:  She has a magic moment in an elevator with a stranger — who turns out to be the boyfriend of her boss.  He doesn’t recognize her from their encounter (she was wearing glitter paint after all, which is almost as good as glasses for making you completely unrecognizable) and her boss steals her designs for decorating his home, designs that capture his heart.  When oh when will he get over his rich boy blues and realize that she is really the perfect one for him?   Perhaps some time during the thousand romantic moments they have?  Or, you know, after that.

Grade: B.  This provides exactly what you’d want (and what you’d expect) from a made for TV holiday romance.   The male lead didn’t seem to have much chemistry (aka acting skill), but he filled the role of Rich Clueless and Handsome well enough that it didn’t detract from the overall charm of the movie.

Stars: Elisabeth Röhm (Detective Kate Lockley from Angel), Laura Breckenridge, Brendan Fehr (Roswell)

Note: Apparently, they made A Christmas Kiss 2.  Because why not.

 

 

CHRISTMAS CRUSH (aka Holiday High School Reunion)

She: Single aspiring fashion designer working as unappreciated assistant to tyrannical boss.

Best Friend/ co-conspirator/ token: Artsy best friend from high school, Duckie Lite.  Because he’s also a love interest, the token is one removed in the form of his obsessive half-Filipino stalker ex.

Category: Man who was everything she is looking for is right in front of her the whole time.

Premise: 30-something woman returns home for holidays.  Once queen of high school, she is embarrassed to attend a high school reunion without having succeeded in life, but goes anyway hoping to connect with her high school boyfriend, the star football player.  Her old best friend, the Duckie she never appreciated, is also there.  And the trio of her former fellow Heathers are led by a mean girl model who is determined to prove herself the true queen bee. What could possibly go wrong?

Grade: C+   Her giggly panting obsession over the caricature of prettyboy meathead for so much of the movie, even after it is pretty clear he’s a spoiled moron who barely remembers her, makes her a bit less sympathetic.  But there’s some funny moments, and once the balance tips to her moments and memories with Duckie, the movie finds its charm.

Note: I noticed the closed captions showed the Simple Minds Don’t You Forget About Me playing as they enter the high school, but the actual music is generic Christmas music.  Guess they couldn’t swing the licensing costs.

Stars: Rachel Boston, Jonathan Bennett, Jon Prescott

 

 

DEAR SANTA

She: Social butterfly in NY who is entirely supported by her rich if distant parents and aspires to nothing except shopping and lattes.  So, you know, totes relatable.

Best Friend/ co-conspirator/ token: Sassy gay chef.

Category: Woman who is everything man is looking for is right in front of him the whole time (though in this case she also has to realize who she is and grow into it).

Premise:  Attractive 30-year-old is told by her rich parents she must get a job or a man by Christmas because they will no longer support her.  She’s out buying fashionable party wear one day when the wind carries a dropped letter for Santa into her hands, and she goes ahead and opens it and reads it. It is from a girl whose mother died 2 years ago and is asking for a new wife for her lonely dad.   After Googling the return address to make sure he lives in a decent area of the city, she decides this is her chance to change her life by granting the wish, so stalks the man and his daughter.  This eventually leads her to the homeless shelter he still runs as a promise to his dead wife, and she falls into volunteering.  The story begins to find its heart from this point as she interacts with the homeless people and the daughter.

Grade: C+   It stars Amy Akers (Fred from Angel) so I wanted to love it.  And it’s well acted and has some nice moments.  But I found the “rich girl learns to be like us common folk” gimmick and some of the problematic choices kept bumping me out of the Glowy Feelz, at least for the first half of the movie.

For example, the whole stalking thing after finding the letter.  Better if the letter somehow led her to the homeless shelter directly with the intention of returning it, only to be swept up in the moment.

Still had the warm fuzzy at the end though.

Stars: Amy Acker, David Haydn-Jones, Emma Duke

 

HOLIDAZE

She: Jennie Garth is a high powered female executive who left her small town and her fiancé for life in the big city.

Best Friend/ co-conspirator/ token: She has her two catty friends-of-color in her executive life, and her scheming assistant is a young Asian man, but they are all two-dimensional at best and exist only to show she doesn’t actually have anyone that is truly close to her as a friend and co-conspirator until she falls back in love with her ex.

Category: Woman shown alternate reality and comes to realize what is truly important.

Premise: It’s a Wonderful Wife meets A Christmas, Carol.  The superstore chain she work for as an exec is attempting to put a megastore in her old home town — even though the folksy small town residents don’t want it.  Her ex-fiancé repurchased the old Inn they had originally bought together, and is refurbishing it into a B&B — but it is now going to be turned into a parking lot for the megastore.  And she has neglected her mother, who runs a small struggling cafe.  Then she gets bonked on the head, and wakes up in an alternate reality where she’s married to her ex and still lives in the small town, running the hugely successful cafe.

Grade: C-  The by-the-numbers story didn’t have any real surprises, I didn’t feel any chemistry between the leads, and the “small town vs megachain” theme lacked any of the nuance or complexity of that very real issue.  But I liked how her knowledge and agency drove the plot and resolution.

Stars: Jennie Garth, Cameron Mathison, Kristin Booth

 

SNOWGLOBE

She: works in the family’s Italian deli but dreams of something more, or different, or Christmasy.

Best Friend/co-consipirator/ token:  Generic co-worker friend, and her family.  Not really tokens.

Category: Woman shown alternate reality and comes to realize what is truly important.

Premise: Young woman from a large Italian family in Brooklyn wants to live a life not planned by her family, and to have a magical fantasy Christmas like her dreams.  She is transported into a magical Snowglobe that contains a perfect Christmas village full of golly-gawrsh folks, where she meets a lobotomized Feyd-Rautha in a sweater.  In between visits to globe land, she flirts with her neighbor from down the hall.

Grade: B -. The family dynamic was great fun and well done, and the main romance storyline was decent.  It fell apart a little for me when she continues to try dating Dufus McGlobeboy after she had a real moment with the neighbor, and it felt a little creepy when she basically tries to get it on with the man child, but the rest of the movie is pretty well done.

Note: The same actress was in another completely unrelated “transported into snowglobe” Christmas movie a few years later titled A Snow Globe Christmas, which I haven’t seen.

Stars: Christina Milian, Erin Karpluk, Hilda Doherty, Matt Keeslar (Feyd)

12 DATES OF CHRISTMAS

She: A woman with a plan for her future with her ex-boyfriend.

Best Friend/ Co-Conspirator/ Token:  Best friend/coworker Miyoko, and new friend Leigh.

Category: Woman shown alternate reality and comes to realize what is truly important.

Premise: After she passes out in a department store on Christmas, she experiences a Groundhog Day-style reliving of Christmas Eve over and over until she finds herself, and finds true love.

Grade: B+.  Movies that play with the Groundhog Day formula are often lame, with the person making too few changes and taking too little advantage of reliving the days (like the Fred Xmas movie).  And while I wondered a couple of times why she didn’t repeat the things that did work from previous days, overall I thought they did a fair job with the premise.  The character learns and grows, each iteration brings new information and opportunities, and I was happy when everyone finds love at the end.

Stars: Amy Smart (Butterfly Effect), Mark-Paul Gosselaar.  Poor Amy, she can’t catch a break with the whole time thing — first the Butterfly Effect, now this.

 

 

CHRISTMAS LODGE

She: Career woman who loves the outdoors.

Best Friend/ co-conspirator/ token: Black co-worker. And Jesus.

Category: Time Spent at Quaint Christmas Lodge Helps to Fix Hearts.

Premise:  God-fearing career woman returns to childhood Christmas Lodge to find it in need of saving (along with the handsome man living there).

Grade: D.  Even if we put aside the music that alternates between a granola commercial and elves playing kazoos, or the fact that it takes 20 minutes of “as you know Bob” dialogue about why she loves the woods and how you can really feel God in them there hills before the story actually starts (and even longer before Dr. Daniel Jackson shows up), the movie had zero twists or surprises as to where it was going or how they’d resolve each problem.  Despite the multiple prayer sessions, and actual dialogue like “What would Jesus do?” and “You know I can’t argue with scripture” to move to the “plot” along, I watched the entire thing just to give it a chance to redeem itself, for it to find plot salvation.  It did not.  If you’re feeling guilty about missing church today and need some preaching, maybe watch it.  If you’re looking for a charming holiday romantic comedy, look elsewhere.

Stars: Erin Karpluk, Michael Shanks, Rukiya Bernard

 

LET IT SNOW

She: Executive whose business-focused father (and company owner) has been distant and Bah-Humbugy since her mother died long ago.

Best Friend/ Co-Conspirator/ token:  None

Category: Time Spent at Quaint Christmas Lodge Helps to Fix Hearts.

Premise: Real Estate developer Alan Thicke buys quaint ski lodge from folksy family who value quality Christmas and relationships, and promises he won’t change anything — then sends daughter there to develop plans for tearing it all down and putting in high end adult resort (Thicke needs more money — plastic surgery is expensive, folks!).  But the magic of the lodge and love turn her into a champion for Christmas over cold corporate greed.

If only Citizens United had been decided in a small lodge in December, it might have been a whole other story.

Grade: C.  Predictable but enjoyable, and fun for its celebration of various Christmas traditions that may make you want to establish more of your own.  The better alternative to Christmas Lodge, with plenty of “meaning of Christmas” still.

Stars: Candace Cameron Bure, Jesse Hutch, Alan Thicke