T&K's Xmas Advent Calendar: Day 5

A Toast to Hallmarkent
The Knight Before Christmas (2019, Netflix)

The Story:
Sir Cole (Josh Whitehouse), a 14th-century Knight is out in the woods of Norwich for fun and games when he encounters an old crone (you ever heard of a young crone?).  He's trying to be galliant and bring the crone back to the castle and out of the cold, but she rewards him by spiriting him away to 2019 Ohio, on a quest for what he's always searched for (unsaid, it's true love).  But, she says, if he fails, he shall never become a true knight.

He lands in the middle of a Christmas fair, where, in full knight regalia, he's instantly a bit hit with the ladies.  Speaking of big hits, he's a little disoriented as it starts to snow heavily, he stumbles around and is accidentally run over by Brooke (Vanessa Hudgens), a school teacher.  The all to friendly cops arrive and, after checking him out, infer that he either has amnesia or is delusional.  Against all rational judgement and sense of personal safety, Brooke offers up her guest house to the guy who either has head trauma or is crazy.

Cole, has a shower and emerges in a towel. Brooke gets thirsty. (Beefcake and reaction to beefcake, this ain't your 48-year-old grandma's Hallmark movie...)  Cole learns the ways of Alexa (this Netflix movie is sponsored by Amazon?), binge watching junk reality TV, and does all those corny things displaced people from the past do in modern day.  Being completely out of one's element is funny, because they look stupid not knowing stuff they couldn't possibly know.  He starts teaching Brooke's niece how to sword fight, and Brooke's sister loses all sense of composure around him.  Brooke's neighbour, falling decidedly into the frienemy camp, comes over to eye up the thirst trap.  ("Toodle-pip" he says instead of goodbye).  Brooke starts to entertain the fact that Cole may be legitimately time displaced.

But just because Netflix's Hallmark movies are a little sexier doesn't mean they're also not wholesome. Brooke hosts a Christmas feast for the less fortunate and Cole is invited to help out. Shopping at a Walmart Cole samples their dinner rolls and comments on how highly processed food is crap.  Off to Cole showing Brook how to knead dough (because Cole, as a squire, worked in the kitchen, as squires do).  But sexy making bread time is interrupted when Brooke's niece goes missing in a blizzard. Sir Cole (seemingly impervious to the cold) comes to the rescue, because of his awesome knight tracking skills.  A kiss is interrupted by Brooke's brother in law.

Cole stops a pickpocket at the Christmas fair, and then gets basically offered a job on the force ('cause that's how that works)... if he can pass the psyche exam.  Still he seeks his quest (still doesn't know it's true love, the dummy) and thinks he shall never become a true knight.  On Christmas eve, they get dressed up for the dinner, they almost kiss, but are interrupted by a text.  The dinner goes smashing and Brooke and Cole kiss (with 20 minutes left to go) under mistletoe which triggers Cole's recall medallion and he returns home.  Brooke is heartbroken.  Cole returns home just in time to have a brief conversation with his brother and return back to Brooke for a grand Christmas reunion (and he brought his horse this time).  Love is magic you guys. And Christmas, it's magic too you guys.



The Draw:
I always dismissed Vanessa Hudgens.  I was certainly too old and not the target market for her teen High School Musical and Disney Channel stardom, and the years that followed it seemed like she was playing into that kid-star mold until Spring Breakers, which seemed almost a desperate ploy to break out of that mold (alongside a batch of kid-stars trying to break out of the mold). It seemed to work.  I didn't give Hudgens a chance until the charming if unfocussed Powerless in 2017.  She was the commanding lead of that show and had great straight-man comedic timing...plus that wonderful smile won me over.  Last year's The Princess Switch was Netflix's big coming out as a Hallmark Channel rival with these kind of movies, and it was, to be honest, better than almost all Hallmark Channel movies.  I was keen to learn that Hudgens is going to be the Candice Cameron-Bure of these for Netflix, and The Knight Before Christmas became top-of-the-heap holiday watching.

The Formulae:
Brooke's jaded about love presents itself early on when she coaches a pre-teen student who just faced a break-up to focus more on her goals and less about love.  This jaded attitude about love doesn't really present itself anywhere else though.  There are a lot of near-miss kisses.  Oh and a tree-buying sequence.  There's a Santa in the Christmas fair who may be the real Santa (not quite sure though...they play it coy.  Of course, having a magic crone AND Santa in the same film is a bit much).

A vague town event with a non-descript purpose.  The movie all leads to that thing, which isn't much of a thing, all told, except a setting to get the leads dressed up all nice and kiss. So it does its job and finds and draws out a few Christmas feels along the way.

Hallmark films aren't above a time travel story, so that's truly a formula, where the traveler has to choose between love and home...I assume (I haven't actually watched one).

They introduce a neighbour who could be a complication, but she never is.  These types of movies don't really care to much about interpersonal conflict or drama.

Oh yeah, and dead parents! 

Unformulae:
The usual Hallmark movie is usually female-centric, or from the women's focus, but this one seems almost balanced as being both Cole's story (finding his quest, learning to be a true knight), and Brooke's learning to overcome her jaded attitude towards love.

Bi-racial couples and multi-ethnicity casting abound like it ain't no thing (because it ain't). Hallmark Channel movies still haven't really joined the 90's yet in this regard, but Netflix is showing it's no biggie.

A kiss happens between the leads, and not at the very end of the movie.
Beefcake! BEEFCAKE! Shirtless dude scene, women with lust in their eyes.  There's never even the hint of sex in a normal Hallmark Channel movie, but over at Netflix, they know that modern ladies aren't so puritanical.

There's also a mid-credits scene setting up a sequel.  It looks like Sir Cole's brother, the just knighted Sir Geoffrey may be taking on a romance quest of his own next year... depending on how this one plays, I suppose.

True Calling?:
It's called The Knight Before Christmas and it's about a knight who shows up before Christmas.  Yep, that tracks.

The Rewind:
When the pickpocket is getting handcuffed. One cop (the great "hey that guy!" character actor Arnold Pinnock) who's got the kid's arm held behind his back lets go, the kids arms drop, and the actor playing the female cop is a beat or two behind the scene and steps in to take over.  The kid remembers he's supposed to be getting handcuffed and just puts his hands behind his back in anticipation of being cuffed.  At least the foreground conversation got captured perfectly...good enough!

The Regulars:
Hudgens is in her second go-around with the Netflix Hallmark-esque movies (let's call them "Nallmarxs") and yeah, she can keep coming back for these each year.  I'm in on that.  She's a charming romantic lead.

Though they don't really sell the medieval Norwich setting as honest 14th-century, Whitehouse does make for a dashing knight-esque figure, and he has all the chivalry and propriety one would expect from a fairy-tale knight.

Brooke's sister is played by Emmanuelle Chriqui, who could so easily lead one of these things.  Make it happen Netflix!


How does it Hallmark?
Honestly, it looks better than every Hallmark movie, and I like a lot of things about it that distinguish it from Hallmark.  It seems bigger budget and higher quality overall, even though it's really doing the same thing.  The thing about Hallmark movies is usually they're so bad or so formulaic they're entertaining.  You take most of the formulaicness or the badness out of it and you're just kind of a generic movie instead.  So, as much as I like VanHudg, I would probably prefer to do the Hallmark drinking game against an actual Hallmark movie than watch this.

How does it movie?
It really is more cinematic.  Netflix, not realizing that they can go super-cheap like Hallmark does is still using the cameras with the good lenses and putting some quality production values into their Christmas town and set-ups.  Their set and Christmas decorations don't look like they came from the dollar store.  But it's that very thing that's the problem.  Instead of feeling like a high-quality Hallmark, it feels instead like a not great big studio romcom.

I found the leads charming together but this didn't really work for me.  I know it's a "romantic fantasy" but I didn't buy that Sir Cole wouldn't have greater culture shock, nor that Brooke wouldn't be more wary of this guy.  And there's that whole ridiculously illogical sequence where Brooke gives this mentally unstable/possible guy from 650 years ago the keys to her car and lets him drive through town, which is careless, reckless, and absolutely dangerous.  Bad Brooke! Bad script! You both should know better.