#holidayromcom

Summary: Beautiful meteorologist and Your LL Bean Boyfriend go on a Christmas scavenger hunt. Also, Brad SUCKS.

I would give this movie props for having our leading lady in a STEM field, but I’d have to immediately rescind them, as we never once hear about her scientific work outside of mentioning that it’s the reason she’s so grumpy. Also, “local news meteorologist” is as close to “journalist” as you can get without just being a TV reporter, so it’s low-effort on the part of the writers.

The movie opens on our leading lady Harper, played by Jessica Sipos, complaining about Christmas while covering the weather at a skating rink. This is to establish that Harper is a Grinch who hates holidays, happiness, and cheer. She argues with her sound guy about how people who believe in Christmas magic are silly when he tries to get her to admit that snow is formed by Christmas magic. (This rubbed me the wrong way because, frankly, snow is an amazing feat of nature and science, and Christmas magic should not get credit for it). She then has an embarrassing interaction with a group of adorable white children to establish that she’s NOT Good With Kids, but this never matters again in the movie so I imagine they just included it to confirm her Grinch status. She then has a phone argument with Brad, her coworker/boyfriend who SUCKS, because he forgot that he’s supposed to meet her parents tonight and he’s at work at the newsdesk instead.

Harper gets to her family home by herself and hangs out with her BFF/neighbor Elle. They realize that - gasp! - Elle has accidentally gotten rid of Harper’s family’s traditional mistletoe. I think it’s supposed to be real mistletoe, passed down through generations - does mistletoe keep? - and Harper decides she needs to track down this mistletoe for her family dinner tonight. There’s more conversation about how Harper is a Grinch who doesn’t like Christmas just to hit us over the head with her practicality and stoicism and love of Science, because every adult in this movie but her believes in magic and miracles. Harper goes to hunt down the mistletoe the very next day at the thrift store Elle took it to.

Enter our leading man Luke, played by the handsome Stephen Huszar, who is the manager of the thrift store. (Actually, we learn later that Luke founded the CHAIN of thrift stores he works at and he has a law degree, because having a working-class retail employee as a leading man is not acceptable). 

Luke knows Harper from school when he used to be chubby and a nerd. He’s hot now, though, so Harper doesn’t recognize him. She begs him for help finding her family’s magic mistletoe and he agrees to escort her through a wild good chase that has them travel to: his aunt’s house; the Mall to meet Santa (who, as I understand it, is the real Santa); a fake Christmas tree stand (where the characters carry out an elaborate after-school special about how using a fake Christmas tree benefits the environment); and a dive bar. There’s also a montage in the middle of all this where Harper models cute Christmas-themed outfits from his thrift store so she can dress for dinner. Throughout, Harper is getting messages from Brad (who SUCKS) about how his work is a priority and for some reason doesn’t realize she’s allowed to have standards about her romantic partner’s commitment to their relationship.

So Harper and Luke make it to their last stop, the dive bar that is closed for Christmas but for some reason still has a bouncer stationed outside. (Seriously, who wrote this? What reason would he have to be guarding the entrance of a closed bar? Does he live there?) 

Harper’s mistletoe is inside the bar and they need to get it - but luckily, the bar owner is there (again, why?) and happens to LOVE METEOROLOGY. Harper’s STEM field becomes briefly relevant in an off-screen interaction where she apparently blinds the bar owner with science enough to convince him to give her the mistletoe.

In one last sucker punch, it turns out it's the !!!wROnG miStLetOe!!!, and Brad dumps Harper in a text (because he SUCKS). Harper gets all snappy at Luke for no reason and runs off angrily, to go home and break the news to her family that she’s newly single and she doesn’t have the beloved mistletoe. Worry not! Luke shows up; he found the real mistletoe; Christmas is Saved; they all agree Brad SUCKS.

Other complaints about this one: 

The soundtrack is a terrible mix of made-for-TV Christmas pop songs that would be more appropriate for torturing your enemies.

The only people of color are the sound guy in the first two minutes and the bouncer in the final act, totaling about eight minutes of screentime in a movie that supposedly takes place in a major metro area.

Stephen Huszar overacts so hard I’m shocked he didn’t sprain something. 

FYI: This is not a good movie. It does, however, feature what comes pretty close to a Hallmark/ X-Files crossover, as it features hauntings and time travel. This movie gets props for featuring a non-traditional romance between a corporeal leading lady and a handsome ghost-man. The mythology in this movie is absurd and the acting is terrible, but I’m a sucker for a man with a quiff and a waistcoat, so I’ve actually voluntarily watched this three times.

Our story opens on leading lady Kate, our predictable “workaholic lawyer,” getting dumped by her current boyfriend because she isn’t emotionally available enough. She immediately goes back to work managing the estate of someone who is recently deceased. Twelve days before Christmas, her boss sends her to a beautiful historic inn to get it appraised so they can sell it. Except when she gets to the Inn and tries to talk to the current caretaker, it turns out she can’t sell the place because - surprise! - IT’S HAUNTED!!! And the ghost is FINE. This movie also features such zingers as:

Ghost-man’s name is Daniel, who, judging by his golden pocket watch and the way he eats an apple by cutting it with a pocketknife, died sometime in the 1920s. Yeah, he eats food, and he’s solid (otherwise he wouldn’t be able to make out with Kate later). But he can turn invisible and walk through walls at will. He’s haunted the Inn since he died, but in a weird Christmas-y twist, only for the twelve days leading up to Christmas. Once Kate overcomes the shock of ghosts being real, and Daniel being a hot ghost, their story then becomes about trying to “free” Daniel from the “curse” of being semi-corporeal once a year. The movie skirts the X-Files line until halfway through the mystery when the local pub’s plumbing bursts! and Kate and Daniel have to Save Christmas for the Locals! by hosting a Christmas party at the Inn. Turns out, Daniel is a damn fine bartender. They share their first kiss at this party, which complicates things, because isn’t Daniel supposed to be trying to get into the Great Beyond?

The ghost mythology in this movie doesn’t make any sense and frankly even after three viewings I have a hard time articulating it, but basically, Daniel is haunting the Inn because he was murdered and has unfinished business re: his dead fiance Lilly and his brother Oliver, as he caught the two of them making out in the moments before he died. He also has some brand-new flashbacks that lead him to believe Lilly was pregnant with Oliver’s kid - but it might be Daniel’s kid? - but I’m not really sure because that “evidence” isn’t really explained, and the baby died in infancy, so frankly there’s no reason to include it except to generate sympathy for Daniel. Maybe a fourth viewing will clear it up. In the weirdest turn of events in this movie, there are actually several ghosts in this movie. Daniel has never remembered them before, but Kate’s constant interrogation acts like regression therapy for him, and he starts piecing together memories of the days leading up to his death. In the final act we meet the ghosts of Oliver, who has a fight with Daniel about his rum-running job; Daniel’s gangster boss, who murdered him; and Lilly, who did cheat on Daniel, but who also still loves Daniel.

At the climax of the movie, Daniel and Kate believe they’ve broken the curse by discovering Daniel’s murderer, and Kate is full-on prepared to commit to a monogamous relationship with a ghost-man she can only see for twelve days a year. (Sounds perfect, am I right, ladies?!?!) Daniel wooshes away at the strike of midnight and we see him being led away by Lilly’s ghost, who is promising that his wait in purgatory is over. In the end, Daniel decides he’d rather stay corporeal and date Kate than enter the Great Beyond with Lilly. The movie ends leaving me with far more questions than answers: is Daniel a normal human now? Because he broke the curse? Even though he was dead and a ghost before? Did he travel through time? Or was he re-assembled somehow? We may never know.