We have to pause for a second to say RIP to Alan Thicke, since he is in about 100 of these movies and has a scene in at least one that is guaranteed to make me cry every time I watch it. Just yesterday I was watching a terrible Lifetime movie (terrible in that it was super boring, and thus is unlikely to receive future coverage on this blog) where Alan Thicke plays the main character’s dad. I wrote down “Alan Thicke: Canada’s Dad” to remind myself that if I did write a blog post on this movie, I should mention Alan Thicke and his awesomeness. Basically, 2016 continues to be a gut punch.
Have we covered any movies yet in the “make a magical Christmas wish to have your life be different, then see what your life would be like and wish for your old life back” category? I’m not sure how it’s possible, since it is such a popular plot device, but I’m pretty sure this is the first one of 2016. And lucky you, it involves copious wildlife photography for some reason.
In A Nutshell
Penny wakes up next to a snoring husband and starts having a Getting Dressed In Professional Clothes montage. I noticed that she had a large picture of red pandas in her bedroom and immediately thought “Wow, we are off to a weird start.” Turns out her husband is a wildlife photographer, but it still struck me as jarring wall decor. Penny is going in to interview for a big promotion at work, but her house is chaos because her sister’s family is staying there.
True story: I became obsessed with the fact that the children in the first five minutes of the movie were replaced by different children about twenty minutes later. There is a baby in the first scene that is never seen again, and I am still convinced that there is a different actor playing the little boy at different points in the movie. I made my husband rewind and compare the scenes with me when the movie was over, and he tells me I’m wrong, but I still think there is a small chance that I might be right. And yeah, I know that you can see the stroller for the baby later when they are in line to see Santa, and that the baby might have already been asleep while they were decorating the Christmas tree later that night. This does not affect my theory that they shot the scenes out of order and added a baby into the first scene so that the writers could use the “Oh no, I have a big interview but the baby just threw strained carrots all over my Professional Clothes!” trope. Feel free to voice opinions on this very crucial matter in the comments.
Anyway, the baby throws carrots all over Penny, and her husband Stu (not killing it on these names for male characters, Hallmark writers…but at least it’s not Chet? Or Nick for the 800th time?) makes a crucial husband error of telling her that she should just breathe, and also his parents are coming over tonight, and also he is breaking with years of tradition and buying a Christmas tree without her. Penny is decidedly not on her game and is late for her job interview. Meanwhile, Stu gets a call telling him that the reindeer have started to migrate in Alaska early, and so he needs to get up there immediately. His book of wildlife photography will be literal garbage if it does not contain photos of reindeer, so he knows he has no choice, even though it might take him away for Christmas. He breaks the news to Penny, who is exasperated. Penny starts complaining to her sister while they stand in line waiting to take the Replacement Kids to see Santa. A very nosy older lady standing behind them starts interjecting into their conversation. Suddenly Penny says that she wonders if she would have advanced further in her career if she had never gotten married. Whoosh of bells and lights and whatnot, and the nosy lady has a very knowing look on her face. Christmas wish received, it seems.
Penny’s whole extended family starts decorating the tree later that night, and Stu tells Replacement Nephew that he can’t put the angel on top of the tree because that is Aunt Penny’s job. I’m pretty sure that a grown woman is not going to deprive a child of the chance to put the angel on top of the tree, but here we are. We get to hear the story about how Penny and Stu met in a Christmas tree lot on Christmas Eve. Penny gets on the ladder, falls off, hits her head…cue bright lights…
Penny wakes up in the same house, except with weird modern decor everywhere, no messes, and no other people around. I feel like if she is waking up in an alternate reality as a Type A Career Lady, she would be living in a swank condo downtown somewhere instead of a large single family home in the suburbs by herself, but whatever. When she tries to call her husband’s cell phone, she is greeted by a man who doesn’t speak English. Then a person named Paula calls and says Penny is late for a big presentation, and Penny goes outside and discovers her car is a Jaguar. We find out that this movie is more fake Chicago Canadian nonsense when Paula references “rush hour on the I-90,” because NO ONE in Chicago has ever referred to the Kennedy as “the I-90.” Penny gets to work and finds out that she is ruthless and that everyone calls her The Barracuda behind her back, which is an objectively awesome nickname. Paula turns out to be Penny’s assistant, who thinks her boss is acting crazy but later figures out that Penny is hung up on her ex-husband and encourages her to partake in a Makeover Montage (My husband: “We are badass business women, but we still love maaaaaakeovers!”). Paula also gets to go with Penny to pitch a big account and is the only one who participates in Ugly Christmas Sweater day. Paula, Brooke and I are getting drinks with Fruitcake Lady later, and you are totally invited.
Penny eventually has a run-in with the nosy lady from the Santa line, and we discover that she is some kind of Christmas angel or magical spirit who has granted the “Christmas wish” Penny made to have never gotten married. Penny wants to take this wish back, but is informed that she cannot. To add insult to injury, Penny goes to see her sister and discovers that her sister never got married because the sister’s husband is a friend of Stu’s, and that Replacement Nephew doesn’t even exist in this universe (the baby never existed). My husband asked me if this was a “White Christmas” situation where one sister cannot get married unless the other one does…I cannot tell you how proud it makes me that he has retained that much knowledge about “White Christmas” (I force him to watch it with me every year, because I’m a great wife). Since the angel can’t or won’t undo the wish, Penny goes to Stu’s photography shop and tries to hire him for a job at her ad agency. They proceed to start falling in love all over again.
Are There Obstacles To Their Love/Christmas Spirit??
Penny is doing an ad campaign for a struggling department store. The department store executive is a very eligible bachelor who relentlessly pursues her. My husband referred to this guy as Tall Bulky Executive. This guy tried to micromanage a photoshoot that Stu was putting together for the ad campaign to assert his manly dominance. He also took credit for coming up with the idea for the ad campaign when talking to some of his buddies at the company Christmas party, which shows us that he is a Bad Guy because it was Penny’s idea. Sidebar: everyone is eating lobster at the Christmas party, and Penny has her hair done exactly the same way I did for my sophomore year homecoming dance in 2002, which makes me think that this movie is set in pre-Great Recession times. So yeah, we think maybe Penny likes Tall Bulky Executive because he is handsome in a plastic kind of way, but really she only has eyes for Stu.
The angel magic lady is an obstacle because she is displeased that Penny has found Stu again in this alternate universe, and so the angel magic lady gives Stu a fiance. The fiance encourages Stu to spend less time on his wildlife photography and take more corporate gigs, so obviously this woman is awful. Stu and Penny admit their feelings to each other in a Christmas tree lot on Christmas Eve, but Stu won’t leave his awful fiance, so Penny knows she has to stand aside.
But Do They Find The Meaning of Christmas???
Weirdly aggressive carolers make another appearance in this movie!!! They are singing a terrible rendition of “O Christmas Tree,” and they are not afraid to get in your face with it!
I guess Penny finds the meaning of Christmas because she misses having her big family around her…or something. Nothing suggesting that Penny is particularly Scrooge-like, so I think everyone is fairly down with the meaning of Christmas.
But Do They Fall In Love At The End???
Before they part ways at the Christmas tree lot, Stu hands Penny an angel tree topper and literally says “I found this. Merry Christmas.” Wow, what a heartfelt gift, Stu. We will leave aside the fact that you did not even attempt to pay for it. Penny realizes that to go back to her reality, she should try falling off a ladder again. It works! She wakes up with Stu standing over her asking if she is ok in their regular house. Penny kisses him passionately, and Replacement Nephew and the other kid seem waaaaaaaay too into watching it. Then Penny’s phone rings. “That was work! I got the promotion!” No one has ever been given a promotion over the phone outside of working hours, but this is also a movie in which a magical angel person takes a woman into an alternate universe, so I’m not going to get too spun up about this. It doesn’t matter anyway, because Penny decides to turn it down so she can become Stu’s full-time manager for his wildlife book tour. Yay empowerment!
I thought the actress playing Penny was pretty likable. Stu is the equivalent of Wonderbread. He has no discernible personality. Their chemistry was fine. I’ve definitely seen worse.
Is It Worth The Effort It Will Take Me To Fast Forward Through All The Human Growth Hormone Commercials In Order To Watch This? (And Why Am I Watching Commercials For HGH On Hallmark?)
I always check IMDB first when I work on these posts, because sometimes the user forums put things so eloquently that I could not even begin to top it, and thus I do not try. It also helps for the character names that I constantly forget. This gem is courtesy of IMDB user rebekahrox:
The angel character was evil.
Her wish to never have been married was not a sincere desire but a momentary random thought voiced out loud. The Cindi Williams character was a busybody who was meddling in a stranger’s life without a by-your-leave and it resulted in some devastating collateral damage to Penny’s sister. Penny begged her to give her her old life back, but she was cold and intransigent. She refused to take responsibility for the fiasco and even blamed God. The whole experience taught Penny nothing, as she was not unhappy with her husband or her life to begin with.
You, like Penny, will likely learn nothing and gain nothing from the events of this movie.
Deck the Hall(mark Movie)s 