ed. note: Most of these watched live, would be in bits & pieces like in Kent's followup post, brought to you by the magic of Christmas time.
Emma (Kyla Pratt, The Christmas Pact) is working for an ad agency in The Big City. She is assigned the job to come up with a new ad campaign for a lucrative client's new designer watch. She has been with the agency for 13 years as a copywriter but was solely responsible for the success of the their last big campaign. I doubt anyone writing this movie knows how ad campaigns are done, nor what copywriters do, nor how opposite-of-successful thirteen years in the same role is. Maybe they never wanted this campaign to succeed, and just wanted to blame its failure on the go-nowhere girl that the client asked about. Either way, Emma is saddled with it. And its due Xmas Eve. Who gives an agency 16 days to complete a major campaign? Dick, Dick Client.
At the same time Emma's sister gives her a stay at the Inn in their home PST. Almost two weeks of quiet, away from the office, will allow her to focus on the work required. And there are no ulterior motives, nope none, nuh uh. So, whens he runs into her ex (Edward Ruttle, Christmas Lost & Found), a man who is now a successful playwright living in the UK, a man who's wife passed away (take a shot) not so long ago. I guess when they are doing these movies, they have to consider the amount of time between the passing and the expected re-kindling of romantic feelings, and shove the two characters together in that key period of time before they run into someone else.
Also, some side plot or plot hook, involves Emma finding the watch she gave her Ex in college. And the guy who sells it to her keeps on appearing in different roles, like a Magic Santa but with no connection to Santa at all. In fact, the connection to Xmas in this movie is tenuous, as if they just had a generic romance plot and had to shoehorn it into Xmas season.
Anywayz, as is typical of these, Emma should be focusing on the job she was assigned, but she cannot help but keep on re-connecting with her ex, and his oh so cute daughter. BTW, Ex and daughter, are in town for the charity production of his latest play, something about a magical watch and Xmas. And this will be the last play produced in the hometown theatre, as well as the last point for their local Xmas Event (take a shot, but to be honest, by this time I was already tippling Port). Also, I think the Mayor / Innkeeper will be closing the Inn. Budget cuts, something or other. All doom & gloom, PST woes.
That is until Emma, while trying to not-work-on-actual-job ends up sending the script of the play & her poster to the Dick Client. He assumes, since its WATCH related, that it must be his campaign. He loves it! Kind of weird that that its in play format, but when Emma pitches that they will actually produce the play and he can connect to it via social media, he LOVES it.
So, Emma and her Ex are supposed to be reconnecting, but the reason they broke up in the first place was that she put career before personal life. I cannot say that is working out for her -- remember, 13 years in same entry level job. So, when she presents the accidental idea of his play being her ad campaign, he freaks Not because she just stole his intellectual property as her own, which would end up being given entirely over to her agency, but because it appears she is once again putting work ahead of their re-budding relationship. He gets pouty, yells a bit and fumes off. She gets pouty, dresses in cute PJs and mopes a whole lot more, once again not actually working on the campaign.
That is, until the night of the play, and there is a Big Storm, and the two leads of the play are unable to appear, while Dick Client, who is really not much of a dick afterall, can actually fly in on time, Emma and her Ex have to stand in as the mains. The Play, well .... is there a play? All we see is a song, a single song, with her in a Red Dress singing her lost-love song (which she wrote!!) and him going off-script to say he loves her as well. And also Dick Client doesn't want to be upstaged (pun intended) so he jumps in and Saves the Day by funding the theatre, Inn, town, etc. forever and happily ever after.
The Draw: It was on. I was in front of the TV. I had no pressing things that needed being done.
The Formulae: PST, but with little Xmas themes about it. A Dead Wife, though little connection to our female lead. An Xmas Event, but it was not really Xmas themed. There was some tree decorating and some fake snow and a Red Dress, but wow, this movie may have hit many buttons for a Hallmarky movie, but few for being actually Xmas based.
Unformulae: See above.
True Calling? Only in order to make a pun with telling time, i.e. watches.
The Rewind: Nothing worth watch, but I couldn't anyway, as it was live. But there was that bit where we were supposed to be encountering her lovely voice and all I could think was, "Migawd, she's a terrible singer..."
The Regulars: This is from one of the competitors for Hallmark, the Lifetime Channel, but this was Pratt's second such flick. Ruttle has done a lot of Canadian TV, and like Pratt, ends up doing one more of these movies, but actually for Hallmark and once again directed by Beesley. The trend of doing exactly one more Xmas Hallmark-y movie continues through most of the cast.
How does it Hallmark? A Hall-mockbuster? Lifetime obviously wants to reap the coin that these movies are generating. But... wow, this movie barely tried. The formulas are there for a reason, and even if we ignore the minimal attempt at connecting to such, the leads had no connection, no chemistry and there was very very little cuteness or emotion to this flick.
How does it movie? Uhh. So much no. For one, the acting was noticeably bad, and considering the genre it was in, that is saying a lot. The holes in the plot were astounding, with so much of it strung together with a "just because" as to why the story would go from A to B. So bad.
This seems almost More Hallmark Than A Hallmark, to paraphrase rob zombie. That would be a great rob zombie horror movie...actually given that it would need to have creepy PST undertones, sounds more like Jordan Peele territory.
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