So all I pretty much did this past holiday weekend was veg out, since 1) my health has been not nearly 100 percent since 2) my a** has been dragged around to and fro and put to work quite hard the the last few weeks. Said vegging included watching A&E's Pride & Prejudice with my parents (yes, my dad likes it - he enjoys anything in which people don't work for a living and are all carefree about it) for like the billionth time, but when I got back to my apartment, I dug into the REAL veg-worthy programming: Lifetime holiday movies.
Now, let me just say that Lifetime has come a long way in the few years since they made The 12 Men of Christmas, which peeved Ken and me because Christmas, while in the title, was barely a part of the movie. Which is really annoying when you are a Christmas nerd connoisseur.
Well, this year, The March Sisters at Christmas featured the holiday, and Love at the Christmas Table REALLY put the day front-and-center. That's the movie I want to focus on right now because I don't know if it's the sinus pressure talking or what, but it really kind of made my jaw drop in places.
It started off cute - a boy and girl who get thrown together at the kids' table at a yearly Christmas party grow up to have the hots for each other but their timing is never quite right, which is a nice change from the whole They Hate Each Other But They Really Love Each Other Christmas TV movie trope. Also going for it: Winnie Cooper!! Luke From Gilmore Girls! Lorraine "You Are My Density" McFly /Amanda Jones/Caroline in the City! Also: Winnie Cooper's charmingly studly love interest/main character counterpart is 10 years younger than her in real life (they are both playing 32 here), which, woot to Lifetime for that!
And the characters were all pretty likable (at least the ones whose motivations I understood)!
However, this does have to go and be a Lifetime movie, which means some completely WTF things are shoehorned into it, derailing an otherwise put-together flick. For example, Lorraine/Amanda Jones/Caroline has been in love with Luke from Gilmore Girls (Winnie Cooper's dad) for, like, ever, but he fell in love with Winnie Cooper's mom (who passed away years ago) first, breaking L/A/C's heart. He introduces his new bride-to-be to L/A/C on Christmas Eve. And with her newly broken heart thus is borne a year-round obsession with the holiday (even if, to a Christmas connoisseur, this doesn't seem like a bad thing, I recognize that this isn't exactly, um, healthy). Like, she is perpetually celebrating Christmas, because when she realized Luke was in love with Winnie's mom, it was her "Miss Havisham" moment. Come again, movie? I mean, I can't remember the last time a plot point took me out of something so much - and I watched Liz & Dick right after, so that tells you something. For an event so traumatizing to the woman... she decides to repeat the day over and over again? Turning what's normally a joyful holiday (and making others think she's just full of holiday spirit and good cheer year round) into your 30-year-long pity party? And - SPOILER ALERT - when the spell is broken, and she finally lands Luke (in more WTF fashion. See below), what does Lorraine/Amanda Jones/Caroline do? Why, she unplugs all the Christmas lights/decorations on her house. On actual real-deal Christmas. I mean, does she never celebrate the holiday again because she got her man? Because if decorating the outside of one's house for Christmas is a sign of unhingedness, we are a country chockfull of straight-up derelicts, man.
Also "Wait, what?"-worthy is the fight the main characters have that ruins everything for their destined relationship... for a little while, anyway. She accuses him of thinking himself too big for their small town. He accuses her... of harboring romanticized single-lady fantasies of being buried next to her parents in the cemetery. No, really. It might've been the single most horrifyingly creepy thing one character has ever said to another in all the made-for-TV movies ever made. And that includes Elkanah Bent calling people a Dirty Ho-ah (in a bad Southern accent) in North and South.
But then maybe he was just bitter because his dad tells him when he's a few years younger that, "You just aren't wired to be content." And then Dad is totally like "I said that?" years later when his son brings it up. And Mom's all, "Why is it the only time kids listen is the time they shouldn't?" Because, yes, telling your kid they aren't wired the right way is TOTALLY going to go in one ear and out the other.
And that brings us to the completely ridiculous engagements. I mean, we know these characters are supposed to end up together, which is fine - in spite of everything, I liked them and wanted them to get together. They had decent chemistry and backstory and I believed the bad luck when they weren't ready to jump into a relationship, but I could NOT buy that years of friendship, angst and one kiss a few years prior can lead to an engagement, which, by the way, happened right after five years of not speaking to each other.
This can only be topped by Winnie Cooper gathering Lorraine/Amanda Jones/Caroline and Luke in a room to tell them that, even though they've never even shared a kiss or held hands or ANYTHING of a relationship nature, they're made for each other and out-and-out proposes to L/A/C on her dad's behalf. And her dad's all "YES, OMG!" Which leads to the very perplexing un-lighting of the house on Christmas.
Listen, I can suspend my disbelief for A LOT of things, and I really wanted to for this because it was not without it charms, but the beyond quirky things actually left me angry at the movie for throwing it completely off. Hence an entire blog post about it.
Stop doing that, Lifetime. A little less WTFness goes a long way.
