I’d hoped to get this out to you earlier (like, before Hanukkah ended), but alas. This week got away from me, and then kept getting away.
Magic in Mistletoe
Harrington Davis (Paul Campbell, 15 Hallmark movies) is the author of a popular Percy Jackson/Harry Potter-esque Christmas-centric series who is facing some bad PR after a “controversial” tweet. No, nothing like that. What passes as controversial here is him tweeting: “THERE’S NO MAGIC IN MISTLETOE. CHRISTMAS IS A JOKE. IT’S ALL ABOUT MONEY.” His publisher is worried that this will negatively affect the sales of the next book in the series, which is due to come out on Christmas. So, with that Impending Deadline in place, publicist April (Lyndie Greenwood, 3 Hallmark movies) decides to rope Harrington into returning to his Quaint hometown of Mistletoe for their Christmas Festival to hopefully repair his public image.
As they spend the week together, April realizes that while Harrington (Harry to his friends) may seem like he’s gone from Christmas Enthusiast to full-blown Christmas Grump, he’s still close with old friends in town and great with kids and ultimately chagrined by her dressing down of him for not seeming to care about his loyal readers. Underneath all that snark he’s really a good guy! They bond over dead parents (Hallmark’s favorite courtship activity) and a shared love of books. And it ends not with a possibly premature declaration of love, but with a nicely measured “Believe it or not, I really like you.”
What does Christmas mean? Christmas is about community. And sometimes it is about money, but in the way where your bestselling books are helping to boost the economy of the town that inspired your books and less in the gross commercial way.
Is the title a pun? Not only is it about the Christmas magic to be found in the town of Mistletoe, but Magic in Mistletoe is the name of the first book in the series.
Chemistry check? Pretty good. Harrington felt a bit inconsistent, but that was more the writing needing him to go back and forth between being charming and being an asshole for plot reasons.
Dialogue highlight? “I wasn’t going to say ‘joke.’ I was going to say something much more eloquent, like ‘farce’ or ‘circus.’”
How white and straight? Very straight and only the third movie this year to feature a Black woman as the lead.
Pet peeve? I found it very silly that the very first drawings Harrington ever did of the characters were the ones used in the final version of the book (and in all of the marketing and merchandising).
Hot cocoa? Of course the town of Mistletoe has cocoa aplenty!
Rating? 4 out of 5 Christmas fairies
Final verdict? I found this very charming!
Christmas on Cherry Lane
At the beginning, we first meet three families who all live on Cherry Lane: soon-to-be parents Lizzie and John who just bought their house, Regina and her two adult children who do not want her to sell their house and move to Florida with her fiance, and prospective foster parents Mike and Zain. Throughout the movie it’s revealed how they’re all connected, but I’ll give one big part away if you don’t mind a spoiler from the first twenty minutes of the movie. They all live in the same house on Cherry Lane and their stories are three separate timelines in 1973, 1999, and 2023. I had the same reaction to the pilot of This Is Us, which is “oh, yeah, there weren’t any cellphones.” I didn’t say which timeline is which, but I think it’s obvious that the 2023 one has the gay husbands.
This is one of the better multi-storyline Hallmark movies. Each story only has one main conflict and event, and they’re all concisely communicated so it doesn’t get bogged down in trying to balance them all. Only one character appears in all three versions of Cherry Lane, though they are all interconnected in other ways. It did require paying closer attention than the usual Hallmark movie that you can watch with one eye.
What does Christmas mean? Christmas is about more than where you celebrate it, it’s about who you celebrate it with.
Is the title a pun? No, just Christmas Location.
Last minute plans/impending deadline? There are impending deadlines for all three families: a fast-approaching baby due date, a final Christmas at home before its sold, and a last-minute foster child arrival.
Chemistry check? Each storyline featured at least one Hallmark regular, which really helped. The Regina storyline probably was the weakest, chemistry-wise.
Christmas Grump/Christmas Enthusiast? John and Lizzie are not quite Christmas Grumps, but compared to Lizzie’s overly-enthusiastic parents they seem almost Grinch-like.
Quaint town? Cherry Lane is a quaint town unto itself.
Dialogue highlight? “If you ever make me serve canned cranberry sauce, I want a divorce.”
How white and straight? After starring in last year’s The Holiday Sitter, Jonathan Bennett is back in another gay romance. And this time it’s not just two white dudes!
Pet peeve? Apparently Zain singing Christmas carols helps Mike de-stress. While Vincent Rodriguez III is a good singer (as anyone who watched Crazy Ex-Girlfriend knows), I found this “quirk” to be mostly annoying.
Hot cocoa? No time for cocoa on busy Cherry Lane, apparently.
Rating? 3.5 out of 5 Hallmark keepsake ornaments
Final verdict? Definitely the most successful of Hallmark’s attempts at a Love Actually-style multi-storyline movie, but still very slight.
Round and Round
Since 2019 Hallmark has had one Hanukkah movie each year. I have not seen Double Holiday (2019), but of the other three I will say they got better each year. So I was hopeful for this one. I would say it is as good as last year’s Hanukkah on Rye, maybe with a slight edge depending on my mood. There was a lot of 80’s nostalgia, which is not always my jam.
Every year for the seventh night of Hanukkah, Rachel (Vic Michaelis, new to Hallmark movies) picks up sufganiyot from a bakery in Brooklyn to bring to her parents’ house in New Jersey. This is to commemorate the night they met at a Jewish singles mixer, spent all night talking, and ended up at the bakery in the morning. Rachel, after finding out that her boyfriend is bailing on meeting her parents, sets off with her precariously stacked boxes and runs into a hot guy she will meet later1 and the dozens of sufganiyot end up all over the train station floor.
Hot Guy turns out to be Zach (Bryan Greenberg, this is also his first Hallmark movie), brought along to the family gathering by her grandmother with the intention of setting them up. He’s an artist! He has great hands! He’s also a huge D&D nerd, which comes in handy after Rachel spins the heirloom dreidel her grandma gives her which triggers a time loop. Are nerds really more likely to believe someone who tells them they’re stuck in a time loop? This movies thinks so, as Zach ends up roping in his friend who runs a comic book shop for help in figuring out how to free Rachel from her Groundhog Day.
Rachel only loops seven times (way less than Bill Murray), but those seven are enough for her to heal her relationships with her family, figure out that she should break up with her boyfriend, sort out her career ambitions, and (of course) fall for Zach. The ending felt a bit rushed to me, but I wasn’t mad at the way it all came together.
What does Hanukkah mean? It’s a time when miracles can happen!
Is the title a pun? Honestly a pretty vague and boring title. I think they might be running out of steam on the punny titles.
Last minute plans/impending deadline? Each day they deadline of Rachel falling asleep approaches as the team tries to figure out a way out of the loop.
Chemistry check? Very good. Bryan Greenberg is very charming (continuing my theory that former CW/WB teen drama stars make the best Hallmark actors) and I also really enjoyed Rachel’s chemistry with her family.
Quaint town? I guess New Jersey is quaint compared to New York.
Dialogue highlight? “Am I supposed to be Andie McDowell or Bill Murray in this scenario?”
How white and straight? Rachel’s sister and her wife are held up as yet another happy couple in the face of Rachel’s failed relationship history.
Pet peeve? I guess I can chalk it up to the general 80s nostalgia and the tropes of that time, but Rachel acting like being into comics and role playing games is a fringe interest is kind of outdated.
Hot cocoa? No, but Hallmark generally seems to believe that hot cocoa is not as integral to Hanukkah as it is to Christmas.
Rating? 4.5 out of 5 nerd boxes
Final verdict? I love a good time loop movie!
I am very behind and The Secret Gift of Christmas (Friday) and Sealed With a List (Saturday) have already aired and are waiting in my dvr. But I will watch tonight’s Friends & Family Christmas live! Hallmark’s first lesbian Christmas movie! It’s a historical moment I can’t miss.
Hallmark movies absolutely love to have the moment where our main couple see each other again after a bad encounter and say “You!” while dramatically pointing. Bonus points for a family member standing by to say, “I see you’ve already met” or something.
I really enjoyed Round and Round! Enough so that I assume Hallmark outsourced it to different producers... I mean, the two leads live in a BIG CITY and no one got shamed for it! I've loved Bryan Greenberg since the movie Prime and find him extremely charming. Vic Michaelis was a delight and I dove into her instagram afterwards. Also great timing for Rick Hoffman, since Suits has been having a renaissance on Netflix. I wish they'd make more than one Hanukkah movie a year, and also make more that are just sweet lil rom coms where no one uproots their life or leaves behind a career.