T&K's Xmas Advent Calendar: Day 7

Love at the Christmas Table (2013, d. Rachel Lee Goldenberg. Amazon Prime)

Cruising through Amazon Prime I spied this title, which seemed like absolute paydirt in the "mining for Hallmark-esque Xmas movies to review" game.  I mean, it's Danica McKellar, one of Hallmark's absolute princesses (see A Crown For Christmas [2015]), and she's paired up with Dustin Milligan - the goofy, toothy but hunky and loveable Ted from Schitt's Creek, before he was Ted.  This HAD to be ripe for our "A Toast to Hallmarkent" feature right? 

But little clues, even before starting the movie, were prodding me to think otherwise.  The supporting cast was stacked.  Lea Thompson, Scott Patterson from Gilmor Girls, Baywatch's Alexandra Paul and master improv performer Brian Huskey... that's a stacked supporting cast for a Hallmark-esque knock off.

The first thing we see?  A plane landing and the words "The Asylum presents"...!  Oh damn!  I didn't know that The Asylum - the prolific production house most famous for their straight-to-video blockbuster knock-offs (mockbusters) like Transmorphers, Atlantic Rim and Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus - was in the Hallmark ("Hallmock?") movie game....

The film opens with a title card: "Christmas Eve, Present Day". That's not a usual trope for Hallmark.
Milligan introduces himself in voiceover: "I'm Sam Reid.  I'm back in my home town, at a house I haven't been back to in five years.  And tonight will be the biggest night of my life."  Hallmark movies don't have voice overs. 
He steps in the door of a house thoroughly decorated for Christmas.  His name is called out cheerfully.  It's Lea Thompson! Freeze-frame! More narration to introduce her. 

Decordations?  The subtitles on this film are not good...

Then he runs into Kat - freeze-frame! She is introduced, then they have a cute exchange (she makes a Lord of the Rings reference and Marion quote from Raiders of the Lost Ark in the same sentence).  Sam tosses his jacket over a chair and out falls a ring box.

...not good at all.

She actually says "We've got two more of these things in the truck"

Then it cuts back to 1984 - the year Kat's mom died and the year their dads went into business together.

Ok, at this point, I get the distinct feeling this isn't a Hallmock movie. Voice overs, freeze frames, music that sounds like real music and not just one dude at a programmable keyboard, nerdy movie references, and now a flashback?

Only it's not a flashback.  It's just the first in a step through history as we see Sam and Kat (no, not Jenette McCurdy and Ariana Grande) meet at E.B.'s Christmas eve party in 1984 as wee children, then at age 10 getting drunk off boozeless rum cake, and at age 13 where Sam makes a play for a kiss and gets jabbed with a fork.  Then again at 18 (with Danica [age 37 at this point] and Dustin [age 27] attempting to pull off being 18 again), and catching up with them every Christmas Eve at E.B.'s to follow.

This is not the story I was sold on (Amazon's description: "For thirty years, Sam and Katherine have spent Christmas Eve at the Children's Table [not sure why it's capitalized, but I digress - g]. When Sam learns she is moving away, he has one night to tell her he loves her."  This is not really the movie at all) and it's not at all what I was expecting.  It's actually so much better.

Which is not to say it's perfect, but it does have an intriguing structure, as we check in on these two (and the peripheral characters) year over year.  It's clear Sam and Kat love each other, but they have different paths and can't seem to find the right moment to make it work, time and time again.

There are some definite flaws.  The first being that narration, which was obviously tacked on in post-production.  The freeze framing only introduces E.B. (who has a nice role to play in all this and a love story of her own with Kat's dad, which I wish was explored a little more) and Kat, and not Kat's dad or Sam's parents.  In fact, I misheard the opening narration, and though Sam's dad had died and that he and Kat had decided at, like, age 4, to go into the furniture business together.

I don't have much of a problem with Danica being a decade older than Dustin (it's usually the guy who's 10 years older - at least! - playing the same age as the younger woman, so it's time for it to be flipped - see Sleeping With Other People for just one example), but it's them playing so much younger that seems a real stretch.  The kid-casting at age 4, 10 and 13 is pretty good, particularly in finding the girls that could believably be the new Winnie Cooper, and I understand why they have Danica and Dustin playing 18 and older (as that's when the longer sequences start, so might as well use the stars).  It's just a stretch is all.

The Hallmark formula is almost non-existent here, besides a dead parent and overly exhuberant Christmas traditions, this forges its own path, and rather sweetly and mostly believable.  It's understandable that these two would have to forge their own paths in life before they could be together, but it breaks down a bit when, at age 28, they have a massive blow out where they start picking at each other's life and then don't speak to one another again until Sam returns 5 years later to propose. 

I mean, the proposal is actually pretty great, but 5 years between is a stretch. I could buy 2 at most.  As well, I don't get the sense that even before the blow out that they're communicating very much throughout the year between Christmas Eve parties at E.B.'s.  I guess it's a credit to how well Danica and Dustin establish a dynamic, because you believe that each year they instantly reconnect upon seeing each other and that they do anticipate Christmas Eve year round.

There's not a lot of comedy so it's strictly in the Xmas/romance categories, but it was surprising and I enjoyed it quite a bit, just not in the arch/"let's play a drinking game" kind of way.  This is far better than most Hallmark movies AND most (if not all) The Asylum movies.  It's a middle of the road romance and Xmas movie, however, but solidly in the middle of both.

(Post Script: I discovered that this originally aired on Lifetime, and I also only just learned that Lifetime has been broadcasting these kinds of films for over a decade as well, Hallmark's chief competition in this genre of cheap romance, actually).