Generally speaking, I’m trying to keep up with the new movies for 2020. We are now officially in a stretch where there is a new movie every day for 10 days straight, and I am not mentally or emotionally prepared for it. That being said, sometimes I tape really really bad movies from prior years at 2am that I like to share with you for the laughs. See: Baby’s First Christmas. This one is not Baby’s First Christmas bananas from a plot perspective, but it was a movie where every single person involved had totally phoned it in, which made it utterly fascinating.
In A Nutshell
We open with two blonde ladies who are best friends and have gone into business together as professional Christmas helpers. I’m kind of confused by this business model – do they only work two months of the year? Do they make other holidays magical as well? Unclear. Blonde Lady 1 is on the phone with a client and saying they will do everything possible to make it snow on Christmas. Sure, seems like a good promise to make. Then she gets off the phone and tells the other blonde lady they should toast with some eggnog because they opened their business four years ago today. IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WORK DAY? You’ve just got eggnog out and at the ready? I’m assuming it’s boozy eggnog, or why are you toasting with it? I’ve got questions already and we are less than 5 minutes in. They reminisce about their first ever client, where they seamlessly blended Irish and Hungarian Christmas traditions to help a family make a magical Christmas. Ok, what is even happening right now?
Blonde Lady 1 then checks her email, and says “Oh my gosh, we booked THE Andersons!” Blonde Lady 2 is understandably confused until Blonde Lady 1 explains that THE Andersons are 53rd in line for the throne (British throne, I assume?). I’m no expert in royal bloodlines, but I’m pretty sure that no one knows the royal lineage well enough to casually know who is 53rd in line for the British throne. Blonde Lady 1 thinks that this will catapult their business to the next level as THE Andersons refer them to other rich and famous and mildly royal clients.
I think part of the problem is that both of these actresses are just really not great. Now I try to be fair around here. I do not expect Oscar-caliber performances. In fact, if you are an actor of a certain stature, I get worried about you if you appear in these movies (still want to know if Danny Glover is ok). But we have a stable of cute and plucky actresses to pull from who can deliver a line, and these girls sadly are not it. It literally felt like this was the last movie Hallmark was making in 2019 and the lead actress had to pull out because she booked a three episode guest arc on Grey’s Anatomy and then one of the assistant directors was like “My cousin was on an episode of Saving Hope once!” And everyone said, “Sure, why not, bring her in! Let’s knock this out so we can all go home.” (Did I look up the name of a super Canadian TV show strictly for the purpose of making this joke? Sure did).
But really, it’s not all on the acting. It also somehow feels like someone in the writers’ room wrote a parody movie, but then his supervisor picked up the script, did not realize it was a parody, and decided to shoot it super straight. For example: the girls go to see THE Andersons, where everyone appears confused by their presence despite having paid them money to do this job (did someone hire them, or did Blonde Lady 1 hallucinate that email?). Blonde Lady 2 proclaims “We are here to help you have the best Christmas ever!” Terrible line read of an absolutely awful line.
The blonde ladies proceed to snoop around the house uninvited to try to get a sense of who THE Andersons “really are” in order to give them a better Christmas experience, and we watch the visualize Christmas magic in every room. Now I cannot prove this, because as you know I don’t always give these movies my full attention, but I SWEAR that in the first fifteen minutes of the movie, they were setting up Blonde Lady 1 to be the heroine and Blonde Lady 2 to be the best friend. I thought that we saw Blonde Lady 1 on the video chat with her father (“I’d love to come for Christmas, but I’m so busy with the charity!” is the dad’s actual line, proving again that they were not trying super hard on the writing). But then it is Blonde Lady 2 who has a run-in with James while she is inappropriately snooping through his house. James is one of THE Andersons, and he would like to know what she is doing in his house thank you very much. Blonde Lady 2 gives a real crazy ramble-y answer about trying to help his family have the Christmas of their dreams. I don’t think that’s what they were hired to do, but then again I am not clear on who actually hired them and for what purpose. James is suitably unimpressed and would like to get back to doing Business Things without being bothered by Christmas, thank you very much.
Even though Blonde Lady 1 is the person who is obsessed with THE Andersons, it soon becomes clear that this pair is too busy with all of their other client work (…ok…) so Blonde Lady 1 tells Blonde Lady 2 to just run with it and like do a really really good job, ok? Yes, exactly how you would handle the client that you believe will make or break your business. Blonde Lady 2 decides she is going to thaw James’ heart and give his family the best Christmas ever, whether they want it or not!
Are There Obstacles To Their Love/Christmas Spirit?
There is a Corporate Lawyer Lady in this movie. I think we are supposed to believe she is British, but her accent is aaaaall over the place. She is working on a Business Deal with James but is not so subtly letting him know that she would like to be more than friends and that she does not think much of Blonde Lady 2.
THE Andersons haven’t done much with Christmas since they left England, which makes James sad and wistful as he starts to open up to Blonde Lady 2. Which is ok, because Blonde Lady 2 is here to make Christmas great again. James’ Business Deal also involves a takeover of someone’s family business, which is giving him a lot of feelings because he doesn’t like to take away a man’s life work. But don’t worry, all those other Business Deals up until now were fine.
Blonde Lady 2 believes her own awkwardness is an impediment to her potential romance with James, because why would he ever want to date someone like her? She doesn’t understand the world of polo! I mean, she’s probably not wrong, soooooo…
But Do They Find The Meaning of Christmas?
Blonde Lady 2 convinces James to help her get a real Christmas tree for the house. It is worth pointing out that when they get the Christmas tree home and start decorating it, it is very obviously not a real Christmas tree. In fact, it is one of the worst fake Christmas trees I’ve ever seen on television. You can see the middle pole in several places. It felt like a metaphor for this movie. Even though Hallmark has a sponsorship deal with Balsam Hill, we’ve somehow ended up with this nonsense because no one could be bothered.
I believe they also decide to hold THE Anderson family Christmas party at THE Anderson’s house, and Blonde Lady 2 gets all the gifts to make charity donations in envelopes just like James’ family used to do when he was little. He is very touched by this and realizes that he is in love with Blonde Lady 2.
There are also Christmas cookies and decorating and the usual. You know the drill at this point.
But Do They Fall In Love At The End?!?
James invites Blonde Lady 2 to a polo match (do those happen in the dead of winter? Always thought it was more of a summer sport). She goes wearing what appears to be a set of long johns and is very embarrassing, waving and yelling things like “JAMES, OVER HERE! GOOD JOB WITH THE POLO!” (Again, that’s pretty much the actual line as delivered). Corporate Lawyer Lady is there and refuses to let James go talk to Blonde Lady 2, which makes Blonde Lady 2 sad. But wait! We find out at the party that James was really charmed by her awkwardness and inspired not to do the Business Deal that is a hostile takeover of someone’s family business. I think there was briefly a thing where Blonde Lady 2 thinks he’s getting together with Corporate Lawyer Lady and runs away, but I might be confusing this with six other movies I watched that were better than this one.
The leads had zero chemistry. I felt no excitement that they were getting together at the end.
The only part of this movie I genuinely enjoyed was that they found Corporate Lawyer Lady a love interest at the end when James rejects her. It was James’ obnoxious American cousin who was talking loudly about sports. Turns out Corporate Lawyer Lady also loves sports and made snide asides while listening in on his conversation. Can you believe that? A girl who likes sports? Crazy.
Should I Watch This Movie?
I want you to watch this movie so we can talk about it, because you really have to see it to understand how much phoning in was happening here. Obviously the plot was phoned in – we all know there are only 6 possible plots for a Hallmark Christmas movie. But usually movies with this plot give us SOMETHING, like plucky Jill Wagner and her sassy child. This is what would happen if you sucked all the charm out of a movie and said “Here, watch this!” I want someone else to experience it and then text me and tell me how weird it was.
Deck the Hall(mark Movie)s 