Hitched For The Holidays

We had my parents and my husband’s mother here for Thanksgiving.  On Friday we had a leisurely dinner of Thanksgiving leftovers and put up our Christmas tree.  We were trying to decide what to do after dinner, and my dad suggested “watching one of those stupid Hallmark movies so I can mock it.” Luckily I had recorded “Hitched for the Holidays,” which is one of my favorites.  My dad was sold when I told him Joey Lawrence was in it. I asked if he wanted to do guest commentary for the blog, and he said “You better write down what I say, because I won’t remember it after I say it.”  Needless to say, I took some notes.

In A Nutshell

The movie opens with Joey Lawrence breaking up with a girl over the phone.  He goes to his family’s house for Thanksgiving dinner.  My mom pointed out how weird the round rugs looked in the dining room; my dad pointed out that the turkey looked super fake. Joey Lawrence’s family chastises him for his inability to keep a girlfriend or make a decision in his life ever.  He cannot decide between the two main courses, so he takes a little of both and everyone makes fun of him even more.  Then he brings some Thanksgiving dinner to his grandma in the hospital, because Joey Lawrence is a Good Guy. His grandma doesn’t have long to live, and all she wants is to meet the woman that Joey Lawrence is going to marry before she dies.  Joey Lawrence is a Good Guy who doesn’t want to disappoint his grandmother, so he does the logical thing and makes up a fake girlfriend.  He tells his grandmother that his girlfriend’s name is Rosemary because he happens to see roses in the room (my husband proceeded to refer to the main girl only as “Rose Chair Doorknob” for the rest of the movie).  The grandma says she can’t wait to spend the holidays with Rose Chair Doorknob. Joey Lawrence emotes sadness (my dad thinks that Joey Lawrence has “the best sad eyes in the business,” but was upset that “they are sending that old lady to her death with a falsehood”).

Meanwhile, we cut to Julie’s house (my dad thinks they recycled the same fake turkey from the earlier scene).  Julie is a theater critic who only writes positive reviews, even if the plays are terrible. Her mother is Marilu Henner, and she is very pushy and aggressive about finding Julie a New Year’s Eve date.  Marilu invites a creepy podiatrist with a foot fetish to Thanksgiving, and Julie is exasperated.  Julie is also being sexually harassed in an extremely unsettling way by a coworker named Huck at the newspaper where she works.  Because Julie’s thing is that she is Too Nice, she can’t tell either Creepy Podiatrist or Huck that she is not interested.  Instead, she lies and tells Huck that she has a boyfriend.   Then Marilu Henner continues to be all up in Julie’s business, and out of frustration Julie posts an ad on a website that is Definitely Not Craig’s List (Please Don’t Sue Us) looking for a platonic fake boyfriend for the holiday season.  Joey Lawrence hears about Definitely Not Craig’s List (Please Don’t Sue Us) from his Playboy Single Friend who seems to serve no purpose in this movie.  He sees Julie’s ad and answers it.  BOOM, the fake relationship is on! After a rough start at Julie’s office holiday party (Joey Lawrence dancing is my everything), the two get in the groove of being each other’s holiday plus ones.  They go visit Joey Lawrence’s grandmother together (and come up with a really terrible excuse for why Julie’s name is not Rose Chair Doorknob), and the grandmother makes a miraculous recovery from her illness. They go to Hanukkah dinners with Marilu Henner and midnight mass with Rob’s family (my mom insists that Rob’s family cannot possibly be Catholic, because there would be way more twice-a-year churchgoers there for midnight mass).

As I mentioned before, this might be my favorite of the “fake relationship for the holidays” sub-genre of Christmas movies.  This is mostly because of the ways the characters interact with the insane families.  Joey Lawrence finds out just before their first dinner with Marilu Henner that Julie told her parents he is Jewish.  Watching Joey Lawrence attempt to fake his way through Hanukkah prayers and then blowing out the menorah candles at the end is genuinely entertaining. Later, Joey Lawrence tells his parents that he is converting to Judaism for Julie, hoping that they will be mad enough about that to cancel a dinner that they planned for Julie’s parents.  Joey Lawrence underestimated just how badly his parents want him to get married.  Instead of being mad, they decide to go out of their way to throw a massive Hanukkah party to make Julie’s parents feel welcome.  They do not know many things about Judaism, it turns out, and the results are pretty comical.  For example, Joey Lawrence’s brother-in-law admits that he could not find any menorahs, so he just bought “Kwanzaa lamps.” Julie spots a crucifix on the wall, which Joey Lawrence quickly grabs and chucks into a closet.  All of us were cracking up.

Are There Obstacles To Their Love/Christmas Spirit??

No evil ex-boyfriends or weirdly aggressive high school girlfriends; these two just get in their own way.  Joey Lawrence has a lot of issues with commitment which stem from the fact that his mom used to disappear sometimes when he was a child.  He cannot commit to women, jobs, or beverages as a result.  Joey Lawrence confronts his mom about this towards the end of the movie.  My husband tried to make a pithy comment about the speech the mom gives in response, and my dad actually shushed my husband so that he could hear the dialogue.  My dad got really, really into this movie.

Julie tells a lot of white lies to avoid hurting feelings.  She tells Joey Lawrence a lie of omission when she implies that her fiance broke up with her on New Year’s Eve the previous year.  In fact, she broke up with her fiance because she didn’t love him.  Joey Lawrence is upset that she lied and uses this as an excuse to tell everyone about their fake relationship. He also claims that he has no feelings for Julie, which at this stage in the movie is clearly false. Julie is devastated.

But Do They Find The Meaning of Christmas???

This movie is way more focused on New Year’s Eve than Christmas, but there’s some Christmas nonsense in here.  Also, Joey Lawrence and Julie go to see a play called “Socks in the City.”  I really want to know what that is about.

But Do They Fall In Love At The End???

Their fake relationship morphs into a real relationship.  These two lovebirds spend a lot of time kissing on the street, because indoor sets are expensive.  The fact that they are kissing prior to the last five minutes of the movie is very unusual for Hallmark.

Words I never thought I would say: Joey Lawrence is pretty great in this. I think he has very convincing chemistry with the actress who plays Julie. They are adorable.  Take notes on this model in case you ever decide to have a fake relationship for the holidays but then fall in love for real.

Both Joey Lawrence and Julie are moping on New Year’s Eve after their big breakup.  Joey Lawrence goes to see his grandmother, who tells her that she can tell that Joey Lawrence really loves Julie even though the relationship was fake.  He realizes he needs to go find Julie, but before he leaves his weird mom has a premonition that Joey Lawrence will ride a horse.  Joey Lawrence tells his mom that she is crazy, but then he has to steal a horse to get to Julie through all the traffic when he gets to Times Square.  Sidebar: there has never been a faker and more Canadian-looking Times Square stand-in in any movie ever.  My dad asked why the cop didn’t just shoot Joey Lawrence for stealing his horse (not touching that one).  My mom asked me to look up the horse cop on IMDB because she thought he looked familiar (we could not figure out why my mom would know him, other than a two episode stint on “Men in Trees”).  My dad shushed our discussion, because he was missing Joey Lawrence’s big romantic speech.  There is a big romantic speech, and Joey Lawrence and Julie kiss and make up.  We find out via title cards that they get married one year later, and that Joey Lawrence’s grandma dances the Horah at their wedding because she still is not dead.  Oh, and Marilu Henner starts a matchmaking service.  Not sure why we need to know that, but glad to know she’s doing well.

Is It Worth The Effort It Will Take Me To Fast Forward Through All The Robo Twist Commercials In Order To Watch This?

Yes! All five of us thoroughly enjoyed this one.