Christmas In Evergreen (2017)

Ashley Williams may not be a name familiar to many movie viewers, but she is probably know to those who enjoy Christmas TV movies. She's appeared in a good number of them, including Snow, Snow 2: Brain Freeze, and Christmas In The City. None of those movies were actually very good, yet all of them managed to benefit from the presence of Williams in a main role. They were completely passable, disposable, entertainment.

Christmas In Evergreen is also completely passable, disposable, entertainment. It's directed by Alex Zamm (who has a filmography made up of child-friendly films and other Christmas movies, including Snow and A Christmas Prince, which may well be the jewel in his crown - no pun intended) and written by Rick Garman, a man responsible for at least a dozen more films in this vein. In fact, checking out the filmography of Garman on Letterboxd is akin to viewing that list titled "Christmas movie posters with white heterosexual couples wearing red and green". Go ahead and check it out for yourself. I'll still be here when you come back.

The plot here revolves around a snowglobe that may well make your wish come true, which is handy when circumstances conspire to stop Allie Shaw (Williams) from leaving her smalltown home of Evergreen to spend Christmas with her long-distance boyfriend, Spencer (Marcus Rosner). Nobody really wants Allie to leave, she's beloved by pretty much everyone in the community, and she becomes even more valued when she helps Ryan (Teddy Sears) and his young daughter, Zoe (Jaeda Lily Miller), both of whom end up stuck in Evergreen on their way to an atypical Christmas holiday in Florida. Zoe wouldn't mind if they actually ended up spending Christmas in Evergreen, especially when Allie is so nice to them.

Williams has the perfect onscreen personality for this type of thing. She can seem cheery and kind without becoming too annoying, she is cute and wholesome, and she manages to stay enthusiastic for events unfolding around her without seeming too childish. Rosner has to play the man that we know isn’t right for our leading lady, but it’s nice that the script doesn’t make him an irredeemable asshole. He’s just focused on his career path, which requires him to keep his life in the big city. Sears is the standard bland and harmless male lead, although his dialogue is often punctuated by a slightly creepy laugh that is always disproportionate to anything said that may seem amusing, and Miller is the young girl who spends a lot of time pleading to make her Christmas everything she wants it to be. Holly Robinson Peete is the woman trying to organise the local Christmas festival, with all of the stress that entails, Chris Cope is a mayor who resents losing our lead to the lure of the big city, and Barbara Niven is  the mother of the character played by Williams, as well as someone underlining the potential power of the snowglobe.

If you like this kind of stuff at this time of year, as I think we all know I do, this is distinctly average, but enjoyable enough. It helps if you like Williams onscreen, and everyone watching this should be able to call out every plot point at least three scenes before they actually happen. But you can say that about most of these movies.

I appreciate anyone who decided to read through this full review. Especially as I can end almost exactly where I began, by summarising this as completely passable, disposable, entertainment.

5/10

P.S. Here is a huge list of every Christmas movie I have ever reviewed, either here or over at Flickfeast.

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Prime Time: Christmas In The City (2013)

Both director Marita Grabiak and writer Barbara Kymlicka have a fair amount of experience in the world of TV, and Christmas In The City is exactly the sort of competent TV movie you would expect from people who know what they're doing in the field. It has one major negative, which I will get to soon enough.

Ashley Williams is Wendy Carroll, a young woman who is struggling to keep the bankers from claiming the candy store she now runs, a store that used to belong to her deceased father. Heading to the city for the holidays, with her daughter (Grace) by her side, Wendy wants to get herself a holiday job that will help to pay off some debt and save the store. Thanks to her good friend (Angie, played by Shanola Hampton), and the miracle of convenient plotting, Wendy ends up working in a department store, and getting along famously with the boss (Tom Wolman, played by Jon Prescott). Unfortunately, the store is being given a makeover by Teanna Musk (Ashanti), a woman who has little time for any traditional Christmas trimmings that get in the way of converting sales.

Working through the usual selection of boxes to be checked for this kind of fare, Christmas In The City is as unbelievable as it is enjoyable. This sits in that sweet spot of being good enough to enjoy while it is on, yet not good enough to completely distract you if you have it on the TV while you're doing important Christmas prep. The plot is ridiculously simple, I probably said a lot more in the previous paragraph than I needed to, and the ending is obvious from the very opening minute of the film, but it goes down well with your mince pies and hot chocolate.

A large part of the appeal comes from the adult cast members. Williams is someone I have always enjoyed onscreen, and she's just as sweet and likeable here as ever. Hampton does just fine in the role of the bestie, and Prescott is the usual handsome guy with plenty of money at his disposal who takes most pleasure from the kind of seasonal traditions that money can't buy. Then you get Ashanti, who has a lot of fun being the over the top villain of the piece, striding in to the toy department, flanked by her beefy assistants, firing people, setting up new advertising displays, and, of course, even firing Santa.

So what is the one major negative? I hate to say it, but it's Kylie Noelle Price (credited here as just Kylie Price), the little girl who plays Grace. She is, despite stiff competition in this field, the most annoying and awful child actor I have yet seen in one of these festive TV "treats". Seriously, I would have enjoyed this film a lot more if the child had been put out of the picture somehow, perhaps used as a plot device to bring everyone together again in time for the grand finale. That didn't happen, and every moment that Price acts onscreen is a moment that made me want to rip out my own shinbones and drive them through my skull.

An above average slice of sweetness, dragged down to just average by that one performance, Christmas In The City should please people who know exactly what they're looking for from these movies.

5/10

Here are some different movies you can buy.

Snow 2: Brain Freeze (2008)

It may be someone new (Mark Rosman) in the director's chair for this TV movie sequel to the TV movie original but with Rich Burns returning for the writing duties and three of the main cast members returning, this mildly entertaining sequel feels like a brief meeting and cup of mulled wine with old friends. Not your best friends, mind you, but people that you don't rush to throw out of your house until an hour or two has passed by.

Tom Kavanagh is still Nick Snowden AKA Santa Claus and Ashley Williams is still Sandy Brooks but this time around the movie starts with them together, living quite a happy life among the snow and the reindeer. Well, there's the little matter of Nick being so busy with Christmas stuff that he forgets to have any Tinsel-tastic time with the lady in his life but, overall, things are fine. That changes after an argument that ends with Nick travelling through his magic mirror and then getting a knock on the head, making him lose his memory. Sandy has to find him and make him remember who he is but it's not that easy - he has to realise and believe in himself so that the magic of the holiday remains. And, hopefully, he can realise before the dastardly Buck Seger (Patrick Fabian once more) manages to exploit the situation and get his revenge for what happened during the first time that they met.

Although there are some new challenges facing the main characters, this is pretty much a re-run of the first movie. Fabian is still the nominal villain of the piece, young Alexander Conti plays a smartass kid this time around and there's an additional kindly old man (Hal Williams) who has always known about the real magic of Christmas.

The other factor that's just the same this time around is the likeability of the leads. Kavanagh is good, Williams is a little ray of sunshine (or a little star on the Christmas tree or whatever appropriate analogy works best) and Fabian is fun when he's involved in the antics. Conti and Williams don't really add much but the script doesn't treat them all that well so it's not really their fault.

Many people might not even rate this as average but I do, I think it's a standard puff piece lifted up by the three main stars and I might even watch it again one day. It's unlikely but I might.

5/10

http://www.amazon.com/Snow-Brain-Freeze-Tom-Cavanagh/dp/B002HQZX2U/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1355488806&sr=8-1&keywords=snow+2

Snow (2004)

Tom Cavanagh and Ashley Williams star in this pleasant enough Christmas fantasy film that almost rises above the level of average, thanks to the two likeable leads, but doesn't quite make it.

Cavanagh plays Nick Snowden, a man best known to children everywhere as Santa Claus. Nick has to make an unplanned journey when one of his reindeer is spotted by an unscrupulous hunter (Patrick Fabian), tranquilised and taken away to a city zoo. He needs to get the reindeer back for obvious reasons but he also just wants it out of the way from prying eyes as it's not quite learned how to fly yet but should be getting to that stage at any moment. Nick ends up enlisting the help of animal keeper Sandy Brooks (Ashley Williams) but he can only tell her so much. Who would believe that he's really Santa Claus and who would believe that he can use mirrors to travel between the North Pole and anywhere in the world? Well, maybe young Hector (Bobb'e J. Thompson) would but not many others.

Directed by Alex Zamm and written by Rich Burns, Snow is a decent little slice of family entertainment. Okay, so it does enough throughout to keep reminding you that it's a TV movie but it's better than a hundred other uninspired and unimaginative TV movies that have been churned out to fill schedules at this most wonderful time of year.

Tom Cavanagh may seem a bit bland to some people. Oh, alright, he IS quite bland, there's no denying it but I still like him nonetheless (mainly because I used to catch occasional episodes of Ed and then I also enjoyed his character popping up in Scrubs). Ashley Williams brightens up the screen so the movie is lifted slightly whenever she's involved, which is quite a lot, and Patrick Fabian is a fun "baddie". Bobb'e J. Thompson, despite his ridiculously apostrophised name, is good fun as the young smartass who has his heart in the right place.

There are plenty of snowy moments, some cute reindeer, fun with Santa making sure that nobody thinks he's Santa and at least one scene reminiscent of Ernest Saves Christmas ensuring that it's not all bad.

5/10

http://www.amazon.com/Snow-Tom-Cavanagh/dp/B001BAWKRE/ref=sr_1_3?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1355481332&sr=1-3&keywords=snow