A Toast to HallmarKent
2022, d. Ali Liebert
The Draw: It's Hallmark's first movie starring a gay lead character (there have been plenty of Hallmarks with gay male leads, but this is the first time the lead character is gay and building a gay romance)... so landmark viewing...even if the commercials looked awful.
HERstory: Bad font, stock aerial footage of NYC.
Sam is a business manager (vague)...currently convincing one client not to buy a social media company, waiting at the bar for his blind date (who introduces himself as "Dr. Vance Dublane".. who does that? Shouldn't he already know your name, and wouldn't a first name suffice?). Dr. Vance Dublane seems immediately impressed with handsome Sam and says "Let's grab a table instead of drinks". Convo turns to kids and Dr. Vance Dublane is kid crazy, pictures of his niece and nephew, but Sam is immediately put off. Sam has nieces and nephews, too, but he spends no time with them, to the point that Sam is spending Christmas in Hawaii, sans family.
Sam's sis and bro in law must rush off to Buffalo as their baby is due early (they're adopting again).. but who will watch the kids? Mom's in Italy, dad's at a cabin retreat with no cel service? What about Sam? Him? Really? They're not that desperate, are they? What about Aunties? Nope, busy. Cousins? Ach, they have their own lives. Their friend across the street? No, they just hired him as contractor to finish the baby's room, that seems like too much to ask. Again, what about Sam? Eeep, not Sam... no, remember when he had that moustache (1) and almost burned down the kitchen (it was the moustache's fault, right)?
Meanwhile Sam's lesbian best friend just got engaged and Sam's happy for her, but not buying into the married life fantasy, but she hopes one day he finds the perfect guy to settle him down in the most heteronormative of lifestyles (eyeroll: me)
Sis calls Sam, and she guilt trips/blackmails/guilt trips him into doing something helpful for his family whom he hasn't seen in years. Friend/contractor (Jason) from next door hangs out with the kids waiting for Sam to arrive. Sam knocks on Jason's door by accident and Jason's dog scares him, to the point that he falls backwards off the stoop, but Jason catches him. If this was supposed to be romantic, it doesn't linger long enough to really catch the "woo". Inside Sam finds Sis has made a whole schedule (and list of food places to order from) and Jason offers to help make Sam's life easier.
Next morning, Sam's niece wakes him up saying "who are you" but upon putting a finger-moustache to his face shouts "Uncle Sam"(2)? Sam calls one of the places to order food (...wait...post-Pandemic someone is calling a place to order food? No apps in this 'burb?) only to find the first place he calls is out of service. Sam calls Jason, who is helping out his newly single brother with his kids (Jason has 18 nieces and nephews whom he's always spending time with). Sam offers to hire Jason to manny/gunkle train him ("do you always throw money at a problem?" "Whenever I can help it?" ... later at a winter street fair Sam needs to take a call so he gives the ring toss girl a big wad of cash and tells his niece to play another...few hundred rounds). Jason makes a crack about Sam's luxury shoes and Sam clues in that Jason is also gay, which he acts like he just learned the moon exploded.
Sam's nephew has a crush on Jason's niece and they both got parts in the Christmas play, but Jason notes the nephew seemed nervous because of being around the girl. Can Sam give him some acting tips? (Yeah, don't join a play two days before it goes live). Jason's mom stops by with her dog who charges Sam and he pratfalls into the Christmas tree doing almost no damage to the tree hauling it to the ground (then I realize the tree has maybe 3 baubles and just a thick ribbon wrapped around it). Sam and the kids go out with Jason and his big family for a big roam around the neighbourhood's Christmas lights (there's a blessing to Jason's aunt who passed and the whole family in unison do the sign of the cross and kiss to the sky (3)) leading to Sam and Jason to roam and chat and learn about Jason's past romances (the other gay couple in the neighbourhood, and Jason is starting the adoption process in the new year, tired of waiting... I don't like the insinuation that Sam's view on life is going to completely overturn in 2 days and, as a possible romantic interest, put Jason's hope of having a new family in jeopardy...Jason's doing just fine on his own)
Jason visits his brother's general store (it's a really lovely looking general store, actually, very Christmassy and full of candy) and they talk waaaay too much about how Sam's not going to be the right guy to start a family with. Really? Jason's brother is like "give the guy a chance". Meanwhile, Sam helps his nephew with his lines which he reads monotone, blurting them all out while holding his breath and skipping all the punctuation (4). Then Sam gets news that the baby arrived and he immediately calls Jason to come back and join the family zoom call. Sister and brother-in-law are snowed in (in Buffalo in December? No! How could that be?) so he changes his Hawaii plans again until Christmas day at least until after presents are open.
Jason helps Sam wrap presents, and Sam keeps bringing up their paid arrangement, but they're clearly making eyes at each other. Sam says "I'm not going to take advantage of your kindness" and grabs Jason's hand, just then niece pops up looking to talk to Sam and Sam quickly grabs for a blanket to throw over his and Jason's laps (is this the first Hallmark boner joke?(5)). She's nervous about the new baby stealing her love and Sam makes her feel better about it (meanwhile I see the kid-made sign on her door that says "Donia's Room" (6) and I'm like..."Donia?" That's a dumb name.")
Next morning Sam makes breakfast without burning the house down (slow clap from the fam). Jason gives him a gift of a gag ugly XMas sweater (that says "Nice") as well as a cable-knit green sweater ("I thought it would look good on you.") Donia makes the baby a Christmas stocking but also one for Sam which makes him cry. He's wearing the green sweater when Jason arrives and I guess it's the gay version of the Blue/Red/Green dress reveal from straight Hallmarks?
At the XMas play, Sam learns that Jason's niece also has a crush on his nephew and he psyches nephew up and nephew acts like a professional actor, not the awkward, stilted robot from the prior evening. Sam turns down family dinner with Jason's family because he's gonna be on a flight to Hawaii. Christmas Eve in a quiet house, Sam and Jason have a moment, turning all the lights off except the tree and sing silent night, holding hands, then are about to kiss when Dad shows up in his 4x4 truck with Sis, Bro-in-law and baby (cause, you know the first thing you do with a brand new baby is drive 100 miles or more through a raging blizzard). Jason says his goodbyes and Sam gives him his Uncle Consultant check (but when Sam is distracted he slips it into his stalking hanging on the mantle). Jason says "it was nice getting to know you Sam" and leaves, sounding so finite.
Christmas morning, Sam wakes the kids up and the baby is strategically placed under the tree, which he points out to the kids and Donia says "BABY!" (7). Later Donia gives Sam his stocking and finds the cheque. He offers to make breakfast, and Dad says "I'd love some pancakes" and Sam starts to cry (8) and runs away. "I like him sis, I really like him." She explains that the agreement Sam and Jason made became something else, not about the money. Meanwhile, Jason's brother's saying the same thing to him. Sam finally lets his guard down to Sis and talks about his internal pain, which is actually the first genuinely touching moment from Sam in this whole production. He talks about growing up with "not you" being said or inferred about his homosexuality, and how he's carried that with him his whole life, believing that marriage and family are not even available to him despite knowing better. To recap, Sam learned to overcome his fear of cooking, children and intimacy all in 3 days. If that's not Hallmarkie, then I don't know what is.
It all comes down to last minute tell-each-other-how-they-feel foibles, and a nice moment leading to a kiss that feels like an actual romcom ending, followed by onlooking families applauding.
The Formulae: many cooking together scenes, a lot of bad pratfalls, present wrapping, helping kids out with their petty kid troubles, a lot of family members pointing out to the leads what a match the other lead might make for them, some sort of kid Christmas performance, the dress (sweater) reveal...
Unformulae: I went into this really and truly hoping that this would be a generic Hallmark script from 2018 that they just swapped out the female lead for a gay dude, as that would be kind of hilarious. This is not quite that, as both the leads are very clearly gay uncle archetypes so it's much more tailored to gay characters than I had thought. Also, Sam is self-employed and very successful and there's no drama around his work, which is very atypical for Hallmark's female leads.
True Calling? Yeah, it's a fine title. Not too exciting, but not as generic as so many others. If someone references "The Holiday Sitter" next year I'll probably remember which one it is.
The Rewind: Most of the comedy in this was really really bad. Any of the comedy moments that actually made me laugh (most intentional), marked 1 through 7 above were worth a rewind. I loved Donia's delivery of "BABY!" the most I think. But then... there's a BONER JOKE...IN A HALLMARK!
The Regulars: Everyone.
How does it Hallmark? It's so Hallmark, it hurts. Unfortunately it's more on the not-so-good side of Hallmark than it is on the bad-fun Hallmark, or the really different/interesting good. The romance is fine but I have a hard time buying the end result. It *almost* pulls it off, but it would have been more believable if the time span was like, two weeks, rather than 3 days.
How does it movie? It's bad. Yeah, just bad. The weak link is star/co-plotter Jonathan Bennett. He overplays almost every scene for the first hour, especially the comedy. His pratfalls are poorly executed, and his facial muggings are Disney Channel tween sitcom level, just real broad and overplayed for the scene. He reigns it in in the final act and I wish that was how he'd played the character the whole film. I'm glad Hallmark went for the gay romance, and hopefully we see more, but this is lesser than what we got in prior years from other sources, like Single All The Way, The Christmas Set-Up, or Dashing In December.
How Does It Snow? All cotton batting all the time. So much cotton batting. I laughed hard when the one girl had to hi-step through the "snow" so as to not disturb the batting.
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