#marcus rosner

Snowbound for he Holidays

Premiering Saturday, July 18, 8pm/7c on the Hallmark Channel.

Starring Vanessa Lengies and Marcus Rosner.

This worked for me (WHY did this work for me?)

***spoilers*** [I know - ref a 2019 TV movie, does anyone care? Well, on the off-chance they do... Also, given the troperiffic nature of these movies, does it really count as spoilering elements that anyone Familiar With The Genre would be arriving, expecting in advance? Again, on the assumption that it's polite to say so, I'll - say so.]

It's the middle of the summer holidays in the UK so there is probably a law against watching Christmas movies but I am having a summer of jigsaw puzzles and loafing, and Amazon thought I might like this one and, somewhat to my astonishment, I really, REALLY did.

I'm a tricky audience for a Hallmark romcom because I ought to be their perfect viewer but I'm slightly too fond of grit and ambiguity and slightly too ready to throw my remote across the room when the characters do things that are too inauthentic or implausible or mean or stoopid. I think we can blame Georgette Heyer, whose heroines regularly got themselves into highly implausible scrapes but the writing carried me through. Apparently it's not whether I believe the scenarios (I'm fine with suspending disbelief) but give me witty, gritty characters who make plausible choices and only behave in limp ways if they're the plot device that gets the main action going, elsewhere.

I call to the stand -

Devil's Cub (heroine pretends to be her sister and while doing so is consequently ruined, kidnapped and taken on a trip to France where she nonetheless holds her own and is practically never Victimish)

The Corinthian (where the hero, returning home drunk, comes across the heroine escaping from her townhouse disguised as a boy and on a whim accompanies her/him back to her/his estate in the country)

Lots of ingredients in this movie I generally find myself objecting to - and I'm now realising it's about execution/script more than concept.

Things I generally react against but which I was able to go with here:

The heroine is successful but unhappy in a desirable Big World job but comes from a small town and returns home for Reasons.

She gets stuck in her old home town for Reasons (snow on the pass).

She has an ex-boyfriend who still lives in the town and they Have Unresolved History.

There's a Christmas Event she needs to get involved with.

She needs to Change Something about her current life and the time she accidentally spends in Home Town helps her figure this out.

Soooo WHY DID THIS ONE WORK (for me)?

Well, partly, cast chemistry - I believed the mother/daughter relationship. I believed the healing of the broken rels in the town. And I believed the restoration of the relationship with the Dishy Ex.

And - some good, small-scale choices (by which I mean, things that don't matter either way for the plot resolution). Like - she's a huge Country star and so it makes sense that her ex-best-friend's kids are a bit star struck by her. The girl, at least. I mean, they would be, right?

And - I've mentioned the writing? I feel like they say things to each other that real humans might actually say (okay, as well as all the things they say to each other that real humans wouldn't say but which are permissible under the Suspension of Disbelief During Consumption of a RomCom Act of i-just-made-that-one-up).

For example, at one point [okay, okay, in the middle of the movie when they've very quickly forgotten they were at odds with each other for a decade and have gone back to getting on well] instead of just pushing the You Left Me line, the Marcus Rosner character tells the Megan Hilty character that he's proud of all she achieved.

<3 this and darn straight - she's a bone fide Country Superstar.

Resolution - allows her to find her way back to people and community without giving up on her singing career. She buys the theatre, enabling the not-ex-for-much-longer boyfriend's community arts dream to move forward, but rather than Giving Up Fame, says that it will become her "touring base". (That makes sense -why not?).

There's also an arc about the dead father which I felt Switzerland (neutral) about - but I liked the way the movie handled the implications for mother/daughter rel as they move on from this loss.

In conclusion: no-one is The Big Evil, no-one descends into Lunatic Scheming, even the manager is just doing his job and Has A Heart.

The enemy isn't really an enemy - more a question or dilemma. What matters? Can we live the life we dream of and also stay in touch with people who are or who have been important to us? How to pick a way through our choices when it seems that perhaps we can't have it all.

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PS I'm not apologising about the jigsaw thing BTW. I think they're a perfect anxiety hack - at least, they're a perfect anxiety hack For Me.

I discovered this for the first time two Christmases ago, the Christmas of The Big Family Bust-Up when I was down in a dark and stormy Wales feeling pretty dark and stormy on the inside as well and not in the fun, cocktail-quaffing sense. S figured out that this might work for me and I was astonished to find he was Dead Right. This is S who I don't typically think of as someone with huge levels of empathy (um, wonderful in many ways but that is NOT his lead suit).

For *me* jigsaws absorb a perfect amount of cognitive focus - for other people, this might be the focus required for landscape painting or making jewellery, playing chess or bird/train-spotting. AND at the end of the day, it's an activity that simply doesn't matter. So calming.

Today at 1pm/12c

Product Specifications:

Inspired By: Marcus Rosner

External Material: Fabric

Inner: Viscose Lining

Front: Zipper and Buttoned Closure

Collar: Shearling Collar

Color: Grey

Pockets: Four Outside and Two Inside

Sleeves: Full-Length Sleeves

Product Specifications:

Inspired By: Marcus Rosner

External Material: Real Leather

Inner: Faux Shearling Lining

Front: Zipper Closure

Collar: Shearling Shirt Collar

Color: Brown

Pockets: Two Outside and Two Inside

Sleeves: Full-length Sleeves with Shearling Cuffs