T&K's Xmas Advent Calendar: Day 15

A Toast to Hallmarkent
Dear Santa (2011, d. Jason Priestley - Netflix [originally aired on Lifetime])

The Story:

Before we get started... this is the opening image of the film.  It's a nighttime
shot of a live action Santa in a suit blowing "snow" out of what is VERY obviously
a nozzle coming from his sleeve.  The very next shot is a day shot of NYC, so...
what the fuck is this???

 Socialite Crystal Carruthers (Amy Acker) is out shopping the mean street of Fifth Avenue (presumably, they don't really say where this is... shot in Calgary with Philly cut-ins).  She's made a list.  She's checked it twice. It's all for her.

...and so specific...

She stops to admire a dress in a window when a gust of wind happens to blow a child's letter to Santa away from the post man and in Crystal's direction.  She makes the tiniest effort to call out to the post man when the sales clerk from the store jumps out (you know, because high-end fasion sales clerks love going outside in the winter and cold selling customers on their products) exclaiming, "Gorgeous isn't it? It's the last one... and it's your size."  Uh, right.

Anyway, back home after a very busy day shopping, Crystal gets a video call from Mumsy Carruthers on the computer.  Mumsy is sitting in front of a green screen giving Crystal the impression she's in a beach paradise.  Dadsy Carruthers hands her a pina colata to continue the ruse.  They don't want to spend Christmas with Crystal.  At least, this is what's happening in my narrative.

Cheers Mumsy. 
But, oh, that font...barf.

Anyway, Mumsy Carruthers isn't happy that 30-year-old Crystal seems to be doing nothing but shopping and partying, "We just wish you would dooo something with yourself, find a good man...anything."  They're going to cut her off, but give her credit card a stay of execution until until Christmas.  And then Mumsy Carruthers takes a dig at Crystal... "Oh, and dear, that sweater was faaar too tangerine for your complexion."

Crystal, bored waiting for her latte date with her bff decides to commit a federal crime and open a letter not addressed to her.

Olivia wants her dad to have a new wife for Christmas.  Crystal thinks this could be her.  Fate! she decrees.  BFF Kim doesn't like this plan.  "They could be Hillbillies, living in a trailer...or worse, the suburbs." (Because hillbillies and suburbanites would be posting letters to Santa in a mailbox on Fifth Avenue...oh Kim, don't ever change.)  "They live in the west end," Crystal lies . "I Googled their address."  Let the stalking begin!

Crystal drives out to their house (it is the fucking suburbs) and observes them leaving their house, getting into dad's snow removal truck, and then follows them, watching them have milkshakes at a local diner.  Oh no! Olivia lost her mitten! She retrieves it, goes back to their house and puts it on their front porch.  It's a fucking mitten! Audibly inside we hear dad saying "maybe you left it in the truck"... they're talking about the mitten.  It's a mitten.  Kids lose mittens all the damn time. The babysitter comes and dad goes to work at the community soup kitchen.  He's clearly blue collar.  She starts skulking around the kitchen, get's busted by the dad thinking she's a new volunteer, puts her on "bread duty" and tosses her a hairnet which makes her cry.  Then she encounters homeless people who freak the shit out of her.  She can't even handle handing out bread,  She leers in awe at Derek, whom, after one afternoon of stalking, she's clearly put unrealistic and undue expectations on.

She meets Pete Kennedy, the gay chef in the kitchen, who immediately becomes her new BFF.  

They would never say "orgasm" on an actual Hallmark...

He feeds her soup which she was expecting to be gutter trash food but it's "good, really good".  He give her the low-down on Derek - "Edible, isn't he.  He's a real doll.  Poor dear works double time between his job and taking care of his kid. Yet, he still finds time for this place."  He doesn't just volunteer, he runs this place, his wife's project before she died, and he promised to keep it running.

Crystal returns to volunteer, making a good impression while Olivia butchers flute practice in the back room, but Crystal has a chat and makes a connection.  For all her eruditeness, she knows how to engage with people (once she sees them as people). She's late for a truck delivery she said she would help out on and sees Derek reluctantly give a pretty brunette a kiss (hey, at least she's his type).  Dejected she goes with Pete to get coffee.  She shows him Olivia's letter, tells him the story and he flips out.  "It's FATE!"

...nor would Hallmark have an openly gay character in their movie

 Pete is totally on team Crystal.  He tells her that in order to beat "that two-faced hyena" whom Derek dated briefly in college is to show Derek she has what it takes to be a mom to Olivia.  That seems to scare (but not deter) Crystal, who, using acquired knowledge from Olivia crashes daddy-daughter skating time.  Olivia wants to learn some of Crystal's fancy skating moves, and Dad needs to take a phone call.  He entrusts his precious girl with this veritable stranger who he doesn't know has been creeping on them for days (talk about two-faced).  Olivia gets mean girled by some kids from school, Crystal tries to defend her and gets mean girled as well...but they get down to the root of why the girls are mean to her (because Crystal no doubt was once a mean girl herself and knows what goes on in the mean girl mind): jealousy.  Olivia plays basketball with a boy the mean girls like.

After Derek and Olivia get stolen away from skating by the two-faced hyena Jillian, Crystal asks Kim if there's "more to us than just shopping and lattes. Right?"
"Yeah, of course there is."  Kim doesn't sound convinced.
"Of coure... there is".

The next caption is "*wind blowing*"

Jilian gets her gloved hands coughed on by a homeless man, and she throws out her gloves. Crystal runs into her and they have a catty exchange about handbags.  Moments later Crystal gives a homeless man her scarf.  The spirit of giving in her, she raids her closet and starts giving all the soup kitchen regulars her high-end winter wear, much to Derek's surprise.  But, oh no! A the soup kitchen receives a letter of eviction! And Crystal volunteers to babysit while Derek attends to work stuff.  Now the stalker is inside your house, Derek! Oh no! 

 She almost burns down the house trying to cook Alphaghettis. Pizza and dead mom talk are on the menu instead, plus braiding hair and a promise of a shopping date and more skating plans.  But Jillian calls and Olivia tells her he went out on a date...with Crystal (ruh roh).  Derek returns home to find them asleep on the couch together.  Crystal wakes up, they talk about stuff, and Derek notes that he owes it to Olivia to find her a mom and, this time, it's not about me. WHAT? You know what makes children happy? Loveless marriages.  They're so great.  Crystal gets invited to stay over, since it's so late and they have a spare toothbrush.

The next morning, an unglamorous awakening leads to tree decorating and family tomfoolery, busted by Jillian. Suspicious Jillian.

the two-faced hyena is correct on this one...

Awkward brunch leads to competitive beating:

 which devolves into a petulant food fight between Crystal and Jillian:

  Oh boy.

I'm glad this was his reaction and not..."Let's see how this plays out"

Crystal getting cleaned up finds "the ring", which Jillian informs her is going to be hers by Christmas. The awkwardness gets overbearing and Crystal excuses herself, returning to go over the ordeal with Kim who now seems on board with Crystal joining the pleb life, so long as she demolishes Jillian -that knock-off queen- along the way.  Shopping Olivia, Crystal and Derek high end shopping montage.  It's cute, with some genuinely funny bits as Derek keeps getting offered things like cakes, cucumber water and margaritas.  Derek tells Crystal that she inspired Olivia to take swimming lessons and asks Crystal if she can come.

Phone call from mom in front of the green screen again.

Called it: Christmas alone again this year...

Derek and Jillian are out at a high-end restaurant on a dress-up date.  Jillian drops the bomb that she's been investigating Crystal.  She is two-faced and laughs like a hyena, but she's got good instincts.  

I mean, she is trying to warn you.

Olivia calls Crystal, to let her know that dad's out on a fancy date, but she has a plan.  She calls dad and tells him he's sick and has to come home right away.  When he gets home Crystal arrives shortly thereafter and Olivia says she called her "just in case".  Damn, girl!  Good thing too, turns out, as she saved Derek from a half-hearted marriage proposal.

Derek, though, tells Olivia the kitchen is going to be shut down before Christmas because he's owes 10K in back rent or something. While they're sharing, Crystal tells Derek that Olivia hates playing the flute.  "Really?" he says.  "I thought little girls would love playing the flute.  See, this is exactly why Olivia needs a mother like you... I mean, a person like you... a woman...who knows girly stuff...."  Then he calls her out on the lie that Jillian discovered and it only draws them closer.  "Are there any other lies I should know about?"
"Probably," she replies, adorably.

A day or two later at the soup kitchen in the evening, Crystal's car gets towed away.  Derek offers her a ride but gets called away on an urgent parking lot plowing job.  So she goes with him on the job and he teaches her how to plow.  A good time is had by all.  He extends and invite to her to his Christmas party for his crew at his place. I bet there's going to be some mistletoe there. She naturally overdresses for the occasion.  Crystal and Pete turn the party up with danceable pop music, eggnog and a food montage. The conga line was a bit much.  Derek steps out on the porch, sad that he got confirmation of the soup kitchen closing.  After throwing shade with Jillian, Crystal joins him.  They almost kiss, but get interrupted, then he asks her out.  What!? (it's rare anyone ever asks anyone out on a date in these things, but then I remember this isn't Hallmark). But Jillian finds Crystals purse (which she's carrying Olivia's letter around in, and is going to blow up the spot.

Derek confronts Crystal.  A man betrayed.
Sad times all around.
Mumsy calls from the green screen letting Crystal know she's getting cut off but Mumsy and Dadsy have sent a $10,000 Christmas gift to her.  "You better make it last".  But it just so happens, $10,000 is just how much Derek needs to get the soup kitchen out of arrears.  Isn't that a coincidence?

Olivia, enraged that her dad has blown it with Crystal drops some truth bombs. He goes out on a date with Jillian and they spend much of their time talking about Crystal.  He's thinking of proposing... this guy who was going to go out on a date with another woman just a couple days ago... but reconsiders.  After the date, Derek goes to the soup kitchen to find the doors unlocked and the crew loading in the food for the Christmas feast.  Pete drops more truth bombs on Derek.

He goes home to find Olivia ran away.  But she ran away to the skating rink where Crystal already is... and then Derek shows up... but instead of thinking she kidnapped his daughter he starts to see the fateful truth of their meeting. Huggin and a kissin' ensue followed by Christmas dinner at the kitchen.  Sadly no break-up scene with Jillian.


The Draw:
Amy Acker... Angel, Person of Interest, always fabulous.  I don't buy her as the spoiled rich trust fund princess, because she's too down-to-Earth for that.  But that's what makes here falling in love with an average blue-collar Dad and his sweet kid so believable. At the same time, we're supposed to be getting a transition from self-involved rich bitch to compassionate, relatable, everyday woman, and there's plenty of the latter, not so much of the former. There's almost no transition at all.  All Crystal needed to hear from Derek about the homeless is that underneath it all they're just people, and that was enough for her to start forming bonds.

The Formulae:
Dead wife, single dad, kid wants a new mom.  All pretty rote.  Pretenses/hidden agendas only to be found out mid-way through the third act for 5 minutes of complications. Extremely rote.  Nasty girlfriend. Check! That weird thing where people invite a stranger to stay overnight in their house... the more I see these kinds of films the more I see that.

Unformulae:
The soup kitchen thing was pretty sweet, and the way Crystal took to it and the people there was very touching. A gay sidekick, tells us it's not Hallmark (even that kind of token representation seems beyond them). Plus, Jason Priestly directing?

True Calling?
Since it all centers around a letter to Santa, yeah, I'd say it's pretty apt.

The Rewind:
That opening 1.5 second of the Santa shooting snow out of his sleeve.  Just what the fuck is that?  It's so bizarre.  It's not like a production company credit or anything, just this image that's somehow very disturbing in its brevity and purposelessness.

The Regulars:
 Sadly (for us) but mercifully (for her), Amy Acker has not appeared in any other Christmas or Holiday romance movies.

David Haydn-Jones, on the other hand, has been down for a slew of these for Hallmark over the past few years, including the terrifically named A Cookie Cutter Christmas.

Gina Holden, our dear monster Jillian, seems more pigeonholed in low-budg TV thrillers and horror/genre sequels than cheesy romances.  I guess she just has that look.

How does it Hallmark?
It's not a Hallmark movie, but it strangely feels like prototypical Hallmark, before they really started churning these Christmas movies out by the dozens each year.  It's got a lot of feels and sentimentality, and a lot of the familiar tropes, plus a recognizable face to pin the whole thing on.  It does everything it intends to do, and despite the charms of Ms. Acker, it doesn't really feel genuinely sentimental or romantic.

How does it movie?
It's not a great movie.  It doesn't capture "the feels" (neither Christmas nor romance) nearly as much as it should, but man, Amy Acker goes a long way towards its watchability.