T&K's XMas (2021) Advent Calendar: Day 9 - The Nine Kittens of Christmas

 A Toast to HallmarKent: The Nine Kittens of Christmas - 2021, d. David Winning - Hallmark

The Draw:
As I noted last week, I quite adore The Nine Lives of Christmas. So, sequel? Yes please. 

HERstory/THEIRStory:
Establishing shot: Jamestown Fire Department.  We're back at the firehouse!!!  Ambrose is there! He loves crawling all over those fire trucks.  There we also find... Chief Sam has a daughter?  She's cute.  But I'm guessing Gabi's too young for Zachary, and given Chief Sam's kind of mentor/father-like relationship with Zachary it would be real awkward if his 20-something daughter got with this 40-something guy. And surprisingly Gabi doesn't harbor any form of crush on Zachary.   Zachary, now a Fire Captain, and is off to ski for the third year in a row, leaving Ambrose at the fire house for Xmas.  Poor kitty.

We're next in Miami, at a vet clinic.  A framed photo of Marilee and Queenie with a dedication: "Always Loved, Always Remembered".  Aww, Queenie's dead.  Ambrose must be heartbroken.  What a bummer way to start out this sequel.  Not only are Marilee and Zachary broken up, but Queenie is dead.

At work, Marilee has a new "chew toy" (his words) with a business partner/vet named Miles whom she is dating and smooching.  She also has a new cat, named Duchess (kind of in memory of Queenie)  Miles is supposed to join Marilee in return home for her first XMas there in five years.  He'll be right behind her, he says.  Something's up with him.

Bend, Oregon.  Marilee is visiting her sister Jacqueline's family for the first time in 5 years.  Jacqueline has a kid now, Sierra (who is way more than 7 years old, and they did not have a kid in the last one 7 years ago.. they say the kid last met Zachary when she was three, and Marilee moved away 5 years ago...so this kid is 8?  The math just isn't working out here).  There's some bullshit about finding a gift from their mother from the year that she died horribly (what are we doing here?) and they open it to find an advent calendar.  It's a subplot with no purpose, so let me just say it's filled with charms from their mother's charm bracelet and it impacts the plot in no way, shape or form.

Taking a walk, the family happens past the Fire Station, where they run into Zachary wearing an elf outfit, supporting some Christmas visit with Santa.  Marilee and Zachary have a little catch up, it's cute, and obvious that the breakup wasn't exactly an emotional severence but also that Marilee was on a different path.
There's a charity gala for a Children's Hospital and, in buying tickets for the family, Marilee forgets all about buying a ticket for Miles... so shook she is from seeing Zachary again. (We later learn they broke up after two years, because Marilee wanted more and Zachary didn't want change).

The next day Zachary is getting ready to leave for skiing, and he comes across a box of kitties.  Methinks the ski-trip is getting waylaid. 

Aww kitties.

He calls Chief Sam.  Not sure why he needs to call the Chief on his day off. Chief Sam's wife is getting a little annoyed with Chief being on call, especially with two Captains on duty.

Aww kitties

Miles bails on coming out for Christmas because the new on-call vet is inept. Marilee breaks up with Miles because with him it's all work all the time.  She's just done.  But she's also thinking about how much she misses living in Jamestown, being close to family.  But don't worry about poor Miles, he'll be back as the 20-minutes-to-go complication.

Almost all of Marilee and Jacqueline's conversations seem to about about Zachary and/or Miles.  Massive Bechdel test fail, sisters!  It would seem the Advent Calendar's purpose is so that they something else to talk about so that they don't fully fail said test.

Zachary runs into Marilee with the box of kittens on his way to the town vet, only to learn that the vet has just retired (hmm, see where this is going?).  Marilee reminds him she's a vet so they take them to Jacqueline's house.

Aww kitties.

Zachary and Marilee take pictures of the kitties.  (The photos are miles better than the ones in An Unexpected Christmas)

Aww kitties.

Chief Sam goes for a kiss from his wife on the street and she dodges him... it's weird.  Then he tells her he's planning on retiring and there should be lots of time for kissings and kissings dodgings.  Zachary and Marilee run in to them and Chief's wife wants two of the kittens.  He agrees and finally gets that kiss.
Meanwhile, Sierra names all the kitties after Santa's reindeer. 

Aww kitties.

At Chief Sam's for dinner, Chief tells Zachary he's retiring.  They hug.  Meanwhile the sisters have a Bunt cake decorating montage.

Back at the station, Gabi proposes getting a memorial bench for out front of the station in honor of her father.  Only problem, he's not dead.  As a back up the firehouse crew all plan to chip in to restore an antique fire truck that's just been sitting there taking up space in a bay for gods knows how long. 

Kitty adopt-a-thon at the firehouse.

Aww kitties.

Chief Sam and Zachary have one of their famous beefy guy hearts' talk, and Chief asks Zachary if he wants to be the new Chief but he just doesn't know, because change.  Then Zachary runs into Marilee at the grocery store where Marilee is picking up tubs of single lady ice cream (callback).  They have another cat adoption at a local cafe (no health code issues there)... oh, it's a bookstore? With...nearly no...visible books.

Aww kitties.

Zachary and Chief are out out shopping for XMas trees as the same time as Marilee and family.  They both choose the same tree and Marilee makes a pointed comment to Zachary "Next time you find the one, maybe you won't drag your feet."  Oh, snap!  Put some aloe on that burn!

With three kittens left for adoption Zachary and Marilee hit up a church choir practice and the first lady out scares the shit out of them, then decides to take the three remaining kittens.  I really think they need to check her out (despite her history with fostering cats) because she might be a cat hoarder.  No flat cats!  But when it's time to drop off the cats, turns out the cat rescue called and she has to foster four other cats, so she can't take the kitties. So she's not a monster.  That's good I guess.

Aww kitties.

Marilee joins Zachary for tree decorating at Chief Sam's.  Is tree decorating really a job for FIVE adults?

Zachary decides he does want to be Chief, to maintain Chief Sam's legacy, and to prove to Marilee he can accept change... despite the fact that he says it's got nothing to do with her.  So Zachary calls Marilee over to the firehouse where he has a surprise...a banner for the cat adoption which gets Marilee's motor purring and she kisses that boy hard.  For a moment there it really does feel like there's going to be some fire-house-fornicatin'... but then she stops, a wounded expression of self-surprise evident, and she runs away.

They both talk to their cats, because that's what cat people do.  It's the truest thing this movie does.  Then they talk to people, Marilee to her sister (because they only talk about boys) and Zachary to Chief Sam, because they have open-hearted guy talk, which is amazing.

At the fundraiser for the children's hospital, Marilee wears a dress that is not nearly the show-stopper that she had in the last movie, and Chief announces both his retirement and Zachary as his replacement.  

Then, someone is approaching Jacqueline from behind ... oh shit it's Miles!  I never expected Miles to come back...except I totally expected Miles to come back. (The rewind)

Zachary and Marilee are dancing he apologises for letting her go all those years before, but gets interrupted by Jacqueline so Marilee can go meet with Miles. Miles makes his grand overtures and Marilee basically lets him go.  Zachary watches from across the way, but misinterprets the whole thing because of course he does, because that's what happens in these things. Sigh.  It was even pretty obvious from the body language that Marilee was just crushing Miles under her heel.  Maybe Zachary's myopic?

Marilee doesn't know what to do, and Zachary doesn't know what to do.  The cats, Duchess and Ambrose give them both a little push via cel phones.  Marilee speaks while Zachary listens, and she tells him that the guy was her boyfriend but that they've broken up, for a lot of reasons, but mostly because he wasn't Zachary.  Then she hangs up and Zachary just sits with that.

The next day Marilee has signed the rental application for the departed vet's office.  Didn't see that one coming except I totally did.  Zachary shows up at Jacquelines with former Chief Sam's retro fire truck, and he makes some overtures...first, let's adopt Rudolph (Aww kitty), and second this house I'm renovating is for us, and third let's be married people because I accept change into my life now.  Happy ending.

The Formulae:
This one's so formulaic that it feels like it was made in 2018.

Big city girl goes back to perfect small town and runs into an old flame and they reconnect.

There's much more Christmas shit in this one (the last kind of had Christmas around, but it wasn't very Christmassy, but then it was 2014 and the hammer-home-it's-Christmas wasn't the mandate yet).  There's the tree-buying (which calls back to the last one), there's bunt cake decorating montage (as a spin off the cookie baking montage), and there's a tree decorating montage.  

The last movie had no snow at all (it seemed to be shot in early summer), this one has real snow and slush and rain. It's not the most seasonally Christmassy, because it's clearly coming on Springtime.  I should check what the weather in Bend, Oregon is today... oh, it's six degrees (Celcius, so above freezing) and mostly cloudy, with a sunshine for the rest of the week and a mix of snow and rain on the weekend.  So I guess it could be around Christmastime in Oregon.  My bad.

Dead parents.  It didn't play much of a part in the last one (it was the excuse for why Marilee was going to school as a mature student...because she had to raise her sister), and it doesn't play much of a part in this one despite trying to shoehorn whatever that was about the Advent Calendar in here.

The 20-minutes-to-go complication. Sigh.

Unformulae: 
There's often a single dog in these movies with fostering or pet adoptions routinely taking place, but rarely are there cats, and rarely so many cats.  The kitties were cute.

Two guys talking about their emotions - Chief and Zachary - I never get tired of it.  Me and many of my guy friends talk a lot about our emotions and it's the right way to be.  You just so rarely see that represented on any form of TV, nevermind Hallmark.  A guy can share his emotions with a girl, but rarely can guys just have a meaningful chat about their relationships or mental health.  It's a good carry-over from the previous film.

 The steamys.  These Hallmark films so rarely have the steamys.  When we see Marilee and Zachary in the firehouse, I seriously thought they were going to fuuu...lly embrace each other (if you know what I mean).  That was definitely the vibe and where it was heading until Marilee panicked. 

Callbacks.  Hallmark "sequels" don't tend to do so many callbacks, but there were quite a few, some moments in the film really relied on triggering memories of the first film.

True Calling?
Actually, yes.  There are nine kitties which they're trying to get adopted for Christmas. 
It's a lot more appropriate than the Nine Lives of Christmas was.  What lives?

The Rewind: (That "see it again" moment...this can just be a screencap maybe)
Zachary tries to make an online posting for the kitties and it doesn't go well.

Miles seriously creeping up on Jacqueline:
"Excuse me, Jacqueline (serious stalker/Lifetime murder movie vibes in how this was shot).  I know you weren't expecting me (he emphasises "me" sooo weirdly). I'm Miles."  
I rewound this maybe nine times.

Duchess digging through Marilee's clutch and, literally, tossing Marilee her phone. I rewound this, like, totally nine times

The Regulars: (Those familiar Hallmark faces and where we may have seen them before)

Sustad has only a few Hallmark leads under her belt and a few supporting roles (like Sense, Senibility and Snowmen)

At The first kitty adoption Paul Campbell cameo at the kitty adoption.  That Paul Campbell, writer of An Unexpected Christmas and star of Santa Stakeout.  He starred with Sustad in 3 films; 2018’s A Godwink Christmas and 2020’s Wedding Every Weekend and Christmas by Starlight.

Gregory Harrison has a few of these non-Xmas Hallmarks under his belt now, including this year's Sweet Carolina starring Lacey Chabert and Tyler Hines and a whole run of "Signed, Sealed, Delivered" movies.

Robyn Bradley as Chief's wife is a big Hallmark veteran of the past few years, having six different entries between 2020 and 2021.

How does it Hallmark? 

It is, disappointingly, a bog standard Hallmark circa 2018.  Honestly it felt regressive. The Nine Lives of Christmas was really charming, with the two leads having immense charisma and it being fairly humorous, plus the kitty cats who kind of represented their inner monologues, showing displays of affection and bonding in advance of the human leads.  Plus the original had a real foil in Zachary's awful (but awfully fun) "model" girlfriend.  It was what was missing from this one, a real villain of the piece.  That could have been Miles, they could have just dragged Miles into the proceedings right early on and just had him be a complete dink throughout, but no, he's only a momentary foil in the last 20 minutes.  

Frankly this is also little boring. The Chief's retirement side plot was a little whiff of nothing, as was the Advent Calendar.  Both felt like time fillers.  There wasn't enough emphasis or clarity on the various kitty adoption events, so I was confused about how many cats they had gotten rid of.  It would have been interesting if they had a visual checklist on screen showing which kitty had gotten adopted at the event, even spending time with weird or funny cameos at each event.  

Marilee is also far more composed as a character in this one, more confident, less goofy and stammering and cute.  It's nice that she's matured in a way, but she's not quite as much fun to watch.

How does it movie?

Not at all.  I mean, The Nine Lives of Christmas, despite being one of my favourite Hallmarks, still isn't anywhere close to feeling like a cinematic film, it's just a better version of the cheapo Hallmarkies.  And this isn't even half the movie that was.

Like, bring a villain in, have Gabi have an unrequited crush on Zachary, have some real turbulence for the Chief so that he has to, in the film, realize he needs to retire or his marriage might really start to suffer, rather than having already realized... give the sister something else to do.  She was a big time real estate agent in the last one, here she's just homemaker and mom and confidant.  And the niece taking care of the nine kittens had zero shenanigans.  Where were the kid'n'cat shenanigans?  So no, not a movie.