A Toast to Hallmarkent
2011, d. James Hayman - Disney+
Not to be confused with this year's Hallmarkie On the 12th Date of Christmas or this year's HBO Max reality series of the same name, this is a Disney Family Channel original from 2011 starring Amy Smart (Crank, Crank 2: High Voltage) and Mark-Paul Gossler (Saved By The Bell [1989], Saved By The Bell [2020]). It sort of pre-dates the Hallmark formulae but falls very much into that cheap-feel, made-for-TV holiday romance movie genre quite handily. Somehow these movies (see also last year's advent calendar for Desperately Seeking Santa and Dear Santa) that were made this century feel like movies made in the 80's or 90's. The cheap-but-polished aesthetic of Hallmark has reshaped how we look at these films.
The Story
In this one Smart plays Kate, an advertising executive in New York (tplayed by Toronto - the cliched footage of New York montage that opens the film is actually footage of New York intercut with footage of Toronto) who is pining over her ex-boyfriend Jack. She forgot about the Secret Santa at work, and I'm not sure if that was to show she's a bit scatterbrained or too focussed on Jack, or both. Her work BFF received her Secret Santa gift and it was a jar of jam she hadn't opened yet, as well as the gift of harassment from another coworker. She's out shopping for a gift for Jack on Christmas Eve because she "holiday dialed him...it's like drunk dialing without the alcohol", and buys him a two hundred dollar cashmere sweater. She also has plans for a blind date at 5pm: drinks her stepmother Sally's godson, followed by them joining Sally and her dad for dinner.
Kate, wandering through The Bay in Eaton's Center, gets "accidentally" sprayed in the face with perfume (magical chimes tinkling) and passes out. She comes to and races home, past the guy who for some reason is trying to set up lights on trees in the public park on Christmas Eve (a little late, bud) but the lights are all knotted up, and the elevator is out of order (which the super said he'd have fixed by Christmas), and her neighbour Mrs. Frumkin aggressively delivers her a cherry chip loaf, which Kate certainly doesn't seem to appreciate. Kate's just a little bit of an a-hole.
She goes to the bar to meet Miles, rudely pre-judging the lonely, Rivers Cuomo-looking guy sitting by himself smelling his breath. Turns out he's waiting for Phyllis, and she's a bit more pleased with Miles Dufine when he steps forward and introduces himself. He's slightly nervous but kind of charming, with the expected kind of wit for a holiday romance tv movie. He had pre-ordered Kate a lager, but she hates beer and for some reason annoys the piss out of the waitress when she orders a white whine. Kind of a stupid move, though, Miles, pre-ordering the lady's drink. Anyway, Kate rudely watches her phone while Miles talks, even more rudely picks up the phone while he's mid sentence, and even more rudely says she's going to take off, meet her ex-boyfriend, but hopes they'll reconvene at Sally's place afterword. Miles is noticeably and appropriately offended and put off, and leaves abruptly. There's no chance Miles is going to Sally's.
Kate goes to meet Jack, full of over-eager hope, but Jack's there just to drop of his dog Max as he and his new girlfriend Nancy take off to the cabin together (which obviously was their thing). Why Max can't take the dog to the cabin with them, I don't know. Maybe the dog gets all barky when people have sex.
Back at Dad and Sally's house, it's sad. Kate's being a real bitch to Dad's new wife, when Miles calls to tell Sally he's not coming for dinner. Kate says she'll call him, but Sally tells her he's the sweetest guy in the world and she blew it. "You can't go back and change it" she says, with no hint of immediate foreshadowing whatsoever. Kate bemoans her loneliness.
A magical infomercial pops on television setting Max off and then teleports a sleeping Kate back to when she passed out in the perfume section. She's clearly disoriented, and unfamiliar with time-loop scenarios. She pulls her BFF out of the work party to share her recycled day with, pointing out the guy struggling with the lights, being even more rude to Mrs. Frumkin, generally being assholeish. Her BFF postulates that maybe it's a dream... and Kate thinks that if it's a dream she "can behave any way I want." Uhh, you kind of do that already you insensitive prat.
She puts on a slinky purple dress to tempt Jack away from his new girlfriend. It's not going to go the way she thinks. She's agressively weird towards Miles at their date (which she decides to keep knowing that Sally was really mad at her for breaking the date the first time, and she tells her BFF that Miles was a really nice guy), and Miles seems into it. Miles smacks a little of desperation. As they talk over each other - Kate trying to inform Miles pre-emptively about her phone call and "urgent meeting" - Miles says something about a wife, and it goes really bad again.
Kate, thinking her meetup with Jack's going to go differently this time because of a dress she's wearing, calls her Dad to tell her she's not coming to dinner. She talks to Sally about Miles' wife, who, obviously, is dead, and Kate has feelings. She finds out Jack is going to propose to Nancy. Max joins her for a lonely night in. What's the time-share situation with Max for Kate and Jack? The weird infomercial pops on and the clock winds back.
Kate wakes up in the department store again. "Noooo!"
Some people don't know how to enjoy a time loop.
She goes to the doctor, hoping to get a scan to see if she has a brain tumor. The ease of access to which she can get to visit her doctor is the real Christmas Miracle. Kate still thinks getting Jack back is the answer. So she goes to Jack's place and gets real weird to Jack, who is a really nice guy and very patient with this obsessed woman.
She heads to the bar early, where River Cuomo-looking dude is already waiting for Phyllis. Kate chats him up a little. Miles comes in (she notes he's arrived early too) and she blindsides him, starts chatting him up without revealing herself. She starts asking about "the date" he's there for, then about his late wife. "It's no great Lifetime channel tragedy" he says, and says she fell off a ladder cleaning gutters. Kate then tries to console Miles over the fact that she's going to ditch him later. She arrives home to find Mrs. Frumkin's cherry chip loaf outside her door. She utters an "Aww" and decides to thank Mrs. Frumkin, who hauls her inside her beautifully decorated apartment and they do some baking together. Kate starts seeing what lonely old lady life is like together, but also bonds with Mrs. Frumkin.
A lot of the conversations about this movie are about change and personal progress, and the ability to move on from the past.
Kate's dead asleep with Max when the infomercial (it's a partridge and pear pendant set, very tacky) pops on and time resets again. Kate seems much more at ease in round four. She races to head of Jack at the jewelry shop where he's about to buy Nancy's engagement ring. Her stalker vibe turns a bit zen, and they have an easy conversation about where they went wrong (apparently Kate was obsessive about getting married and wasn't interested in what Jack wanted). "Time to let go" she tells herself. She asks about the guy in the park, who every year builds his girlfriend a lighted snowflake whether she wants to or not. Kate asks the girlfriend, Leigh, if she wants a drink. They go back to Kate's place and party like 11-year-old chugging whipped cream right out of the spray can, pissing off the neighbours. Dad and Sally stop by when she didn't show up for dinner, bringing Miles with them. Katie is a bit tipsy, but her and Miles go out for the evening, she learns Miles designs parks ("parkitect") and then he does a palm reading on her, as a pick-up thing which she's actually a little into. She spills to Miles her fixation with Jack but shows signs of moving past it. Miles is reasonably understanding. Late in the evening Rivers is still there, waiting for Phyllis, and there's a misunderstanding, Jack storms off. Kate and Rivers have a drink.
Date 5, Kate makes nice with the man who's always checking to see if she's ok.. "thanks for always being there for me Jim". Kate waits around home for Miles' call rather than meeting at the bar, and they go Christmas tree shopping like people do on Christmas eve (I feel bad for that tree lot guy, he has a lot of trees left for Xmas Eve). They go back to her place and decorate the apartment with WAAAY TOO MANY decorations for Kate to store year round. Kate also made a cake and the head to Sally's for dinner. Miles seems a bit overwhelmed, actually. But Kate is seeing Sally in a new light, and she's admiring her Dad's relationship. They go to Christmas midnight mass where they run into Mrs Frumkin, and time resets as they sing Joy To The World.
Date 6, Kate spends the afternoon with Jim, having cocoa and visits the Allan Gardens where Jim explains what being old is like. Kate goes out and starts buying everything and anything, being a real bad driver, getting a tattoo, eating whatever she wants, dyes her hair, and brings her BFF, and Leigh from the park, to Mrs. Frumkins where they all bake together and dish until midnight, skipping Miles altogether. Guess her date was with Jim.
Date 7. She helps Lee's boyfriend with his snowflake, makes it home in time for Miles' call, and she watches Miles' junior team he coaches play hockey. Devon from Letterkenny tells her that they're all boys from a group home. Miles is their coach, sometimes cook, sometimes tutor. It turns out their captain, Michael took off from the group home. But ignoring that Miles teaches Kate to skate, except she was a junior champion figure skater. It's jarring every time they cut from a very Toronto location to the New York City skyline.
Every.
Time.
Kate takes Miles to a park which he "parkitected" and turns out she took the lights from snowflake guy and decorated the big tree there. Just as Miles is about to kiss her, the clock strikes 12, day resets and she's on the floor of The Bay making kissy faces to Jim and company staring down at her.
Date 8. It seems Kate is finally getting a sense of self, so she goes off and tells Jack her newfound sense of their relationship, which then leads to coffee, a very adult conversation, and new information about Kate's fear of loneliness. Cut to dinner, when Sally is telling god-awful jokes. Kate made dessert. There's a weird moment, Miles storms out, as Miles does. Kate gets confused, and clearly she's started falling in love with Miles but each reset is more difficult as a result.
Date 9. Kate hurts. So she goes day drinking, and Rivers is already is showing up just after lunch looking for Phyllis. Poor Rivers, stood up, and desperately hanging out there all day. Kate rips the bandaid off. She greets Mrs. Frumkin rudely, but with first-name "we're good friends" familiarity. She watches Extreme Hoarders in bed with Max, then gets up to see Mrs. Frumkin off to Mass, apologizing to her for her rudeness. That actually got me a little teary. Mrs. Frumkin is pretty awesome.
Date 10. Kate starts to help snowflake guy but then sees group home runaway Michael. She tries to confront him, but he runs away. She kills the rest of the day then, Day 11, follows him to find he has a secret dog he's caring for. She takes Michael to the rink, and convinces Miles the puppy is a good thing, and then asks Miles out on a date, not revealing that she actually was his date. They have a nice evening, but the day resets.
Date 12. Time to pull it all together. Kate wakes up, gives Jim a kiss. She takes Rivers out for a makeover (he doesn't wind up looking any different). She sets up Jim with Mrs. Frumkin. They hit it off. Kate sees Jack and Nancy and congratulates them. She helps snowflake guy propose to Leigh. She sets up Rivers with her BFF, and meets Miles for that drink. She invites all her new friends, including the boys from the group home to Sally and her Dad's for a big Christmas party. Rivers and BFF are hitting it off. Snowflake guy and Leigh are happily engaged. The group home boys are having a blast. Kate's sister and neices and nephews are there. And it's just all warm and Christmassy. Everyone sing's this film's 12th rendition of "The 12 Days of Christmas". Miles leaves to go to Mass and Kate follows him out and they kiss. Michael Buble sings, the midnight bell chimes, and it starts snowing.
Cut to credits which are accompanied by a weirdly unnecessary highlight reel.
The Draw:
After Just Another Christmas promised, but failed to deliver a time-loop Christmas, I needed to find one. There's one called Christmas Every Day from '96, Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas from '99, Hallmark's Pete's Christmas from 2013, and I thought there was another Hallmarkie or Lifetime one but I can't remember the generic name of that one.
The Formulae:
Well, it's a rip on the Groundhog's Day formulae more than it is the Hallmarkie formulae (which hadn't quite been established yet), but there is the requisite Christmas tree lot scene and the hot cocoa and the lead actress with a figure-skating body-double, plus there's more than a handful of misunderstandings based on snippets of overheard conversations, but by using the time-loop formulae it sidesteps most of the usual tropes.
Oh, and every minor character seems to be hooked up by the end.
Unformulae:
That'd be the time loop. And actual alcohol consumption. There's a few moments where people ask if certain drinks are spiked, but they're not. But much of Miles and Kate meeting up is over drinks.
True Calling?
Yeah but no. They don't really have 12 dates. But there are 12 days she relives. I would have maybe liked it if this were a standard kind of franchise where a mystical thing tells them they have 12 days to sort their shit out.
The Rewind:
Nothing really. I needed to go back and see if that was really Alexander De Jordy from Letterkenny. It was! He looked so young. He grew up a lot between 2011 and 2016.
The Regulars:
Jayne Eastwood, who plays Mrs Frumkin has been doing TV Christmas movies for years... and is in 3 this year alone (2 Lifetimes and 1 Hallmark). She keeps busy.
Richard Fitzpatrick who plays Jim has done a few different Xmas movies over the years but he's not quite a regular.
Laura Miyata who plays BFF Miyoko is a regular Hallmarkie supporting player the past few years.
How does it Hallmark?
Much more enjoyable than almost all Hallmarks. It's really sweet, turns Kate around as a Character very nicely (before we start to really dislike her) and this time loop plays out very, very well.
How does it movie?
It's TV movie quality...shot with that weird gauzy lens they liked to shoot Christmas movies with before Hallmark cleaned things up. The story with a little comedic punch up, better production values (and likely some recasting of the roles) would serve as a very good movie movie. It's just not up to that standard as is.
No comments:
Post a Comment