A Toast to HallmarKent: The Bitch Who Stole Christmas - 2021, d. Don Scardino - VH1/Crave
The Draw:
I mean, that title was hard to resist. I knew RuPaul was involved but I had no idea what to expect. Even then, this defied any expectations.
HERstory:
RuPaul plays a hard-ass fashion publishing maven, ala Vogue's Anna Wintour, named Hannah Contour. Working for her is Olivia St. Lapel (Krysta Rodriguez). Hannah needs a cover story of the annual Christmas issue ("the most important issue in fashion" they say in unison) and wants Olivia to go to "Tuckahoe: the most Christmasiest town in America" and covertly dig up some dirt, as well as obtain their "winter crown" ("the grand prize of this silly little competition they throw every year"). Scandal sells mags. And if she succeeds, Olivia gets that promotion.
Olivia adopts a red wig, heavy makeup and the alias Maggie Zene and heads to Tuckahoe, which, frankly looks like a dingy trash pit and not a PST. The town bursts into song upon her arrival; "Tuckahoe Christmas" which reminds me of a Parker and Stone musical (whether it be South Park or Cannibal the Musical or Book of Mormon), complete with a bit of naughtyness. It's clear we're in for a lot of revelrous camp. There's a ceremony for the previous year's Winter Ball winner returning the crown back to the city's Mayor Coontz, who then reminds everyone that the crown must remain unseen until a new winner is crowned or they will fall victim to the Tuckahoe curse. The crown is then handed to hunky security guy Big Russ (who has a tragic backstory that's left him incredibly single). Angling for a closer look at the crown, Olivia/Maggie runs into him and spills coffee on him, and the shirt comes off instantly (as it does every time he's on screen). Olivia/Maggie is stunned by his chiselled physique and they bond over their "unique" love of coffee.
Olivia/Maggie finds much to be desired at her hotel, the Tucked Inn. It's fucking gross and people keep falling through the ceiling. She befriends the hotel's owner Hazel Delashes (a hilarious performance from Ginger Minj), cab driver Bea Eeep (Peppermint), the local Russian-ish prostitute Kitty Myua (Brooke Lynn Hytes), chronic no-personality-disorder sufferer Jane McBeige (Jan Sport) and here she learns that Hazel has just been served an eviction notice. Turns out the rich bitches of Kittenheel Court are planning to win the crown and raze this part of town to build the most luxurious shopping mall ever. So Olivia decides to help the Broads of Downtown win the Winter Ball and name it the most Christmassy street in town. There's no way it would be torn down then, right?
The first few events do not go well, but a change of tactics, to be more relatable to the crowd means they win the next few events. Big Russ turns up to an afterparty with flowers, and relays to Olivia/Maggie the horrifying story of what happened to his wife, and, of course, loses his shirt, then spills some town dirt about the mayor's missing sister. And later Olivia/Maggie spies the mayor making out with the husband of Kittenheel Lane's chief bitch and learns the location (and passcode, which of course is 80085) of the Crown and spills it all to Hannah, who reminds her that a big promotion is on the line so she better write that expose.
Olivia's secret comes out
(as does the hit piece and the Broads of Downtown are seriously
heartbroken and Big Russ is disgusted (despite Maggie/Olivia having
confessed everything while they were making out the day before) but
after the Spirit of Christmas helps her learn that there's more to life
than work, Olivia delivers an impassioned soapbox speech that regains
her her friendships. Plus she happens to have found a loophole in the
Winter Ball's rules that allows the Broads to compete in the final challenge.
But the festivities are interrupted when the crown is reported stolen
and accusations are levied and there's a final showdown with Hannah and
it's all a deliciously messy Clüsterfünke of high-camp melodrama.
The Formulae:
There's the big city girl going to the Christmassy town, having a Christmas deadline, and pretending to be someone she's not, only to befriend the people in town and fall for the hunky guy with a pained past but then have her deception be exposed with 20 minutes left to go wounding her new friends and almost-boyfriend, but then for her to make it up to them by saving the day and proving she belongs with them.
Unformulae:
Oh, you know, swearing and tits, and so much overt sexuality, vulgar language and gestures, and just a big campy energy, and extreme dramatic swings that more recall Lifetime's non-Christmas content. Drag queens and trans celebs are also, let's say, never represented in Hallmarks or Lifetimes. There are musical sequences here, not that Hallmarkies don't have music, but they rarely center on them and when a character does perform a song it's usually like 90 seconds long.
True Calling?
No, the title isn't really, truly representative of the movie, as there's no bitch that steals Christmas ourtright. But it is a great title.
The Rewind:
I had to rewind RuPaul's first scene, because I was trying to figure out what was triggering my sense of uncanny valley.
I love a looking-around-the-room-for-an-alias gag, and it's used twice here. When Maggie is checking into the hotel and she's trying to think of her occupation but not tip off that she's a reporter: "I'm a... *Sees a jar, sees hazel's fingernail, sees a list pinned to the wall*... jour...nail...list". Or when David Keochner's P.I. character, in drag, checks in trying to dig up dirt on Olivia, and he has to list his occupation: "I'm an...*see's the inn's name, see's Hazel's vest, sees a trinket of an alligator drinking tea*... inn...vest...teagator. But what also sells it is Ginger Minj's reactions, first incensed, but quickly excited about Maggie/Olivia's career as a journal-maker or Mr. E's career as a reptile investor.
There are a tremendous amount of great jokes, running gags, intentionally awful puns, and just boffo bizarre performances. The best rewind is basically a rewatch.
The Regulars:
Hah. No.
But I loved seeing Krysta Rodriguez again so soon after her amazing turn as Liza Minelli in Halston.
How does it Hallmark?
A movie primarily starring Drag Queens has a layer of artificiality to
it already, but the digital snow, the never-more-obvious studio-lot
street settings, and the greenscreened-in RuPaul performance (she showed
up for the forgettable Disney+ Muppets Now series but not
this...?) just screams fake-fake-fake in a way that even the Lifetime
movies (moreso than the Hallmarks) this is only marginally spoofing do
not. RuPaul's appearance here almost feels like she's a digital
character, the layers of makeup and the immovability of her wig creating
an even-more-than-usual surreal look. The very cheap camera trickery
in all RuPaul's scenes is so artificial and yet, given the tone of the
film, it only kind of helps it along.
How does it movie?
This is a silly, absurd, raunchy, hilarious movie. I'm not at all versed in the Drag Race phenomenon,
so I'm certain I'm missing a lot of little in-jokes and cameos that
came out of that show, but with only a few exceptions I didn't feel I
was missing out on anything. While it pokes a little fun at holiday romance
tropes, it's not really a direct send-up or parody. It uses a bit of
it as a framework for which it hangs a kind of classic comedy that seems
like a Christmas/Drag version of Airplane or Zoolander.
It's mile-a-minute comedy, which director Don Scardino (with 38 episodes of 30 Rock episodes under his belt) is well versed in. That type of comedy doesn't ever linger on a joke, so the ones that fall short or seem less inspired are buried by the sharper, goofier or more memorable bits, of which there are many.
Scardino leans into the artificiality and dinginess of his sets and effects, which is inherently more comedic than trying to make everything look perfect when the budget won't support it (often a problem for the cheapo-holiday romance). Both this film and A Clüsterfünke Christmas were produced by MTV Films but they took very different approaches to their parody of the holiday film. While I think Clüsterfünke is easily more approachable and is more in the spirit of the type of films it parodies, I think The Bitch Who Stole Christmas is actually much more directly a comedy than a parody, and much funnier. That most of the major characters of the film are Drag Queens doesn't even really enter into the equation of the comedy. Much like how the Muppets can play characters in films, people in Drag can add another character layer on top, and in some cases there are some wonderful comedic performances, and in others there's just an elevation of the level of campiness, all of which works. There's no acknowledgement of drag (just like in, say, Muppet Christmas Carol or Muppet Treasure Island there's no acknowledgement of the difference between human characters or the muppet characters) except in a meta sense (like Olivia basically adopting a drag identity in Maggie Zene, and all the other absurdly great character names in the film).
This won't be to everyone's tastes and it's not very Christmassy, but
it's still a damn delight. There are enough great gags to revisit this
over and over.
How Does It Snow?
It's as fake as the wig on everyone's heads.
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