Prime Time: Christmas Is Canceled (2021)

It can be difficult to move on after the death of a loved one. Emma Lockhart (Hayley Orrantia) struggles for the two years after the death of her mother, distracting herself from the pain by turning her focus towards helping her father, Jack (Dermot Mulroney). Things get tough when Emma finds out that her father is now dating Brandy Barnes (Janel Parrish). Brandy is about the same age as Emma, the two were even briefly friends in high school. This cannot stand, and Emma determines to make use of the Christmas holiday time to break up her father and his new love interest. Her friend, Charlyne (Emilie Modaff) doesn’t approve, but at least there’s a handsome barman (Josh, played by Michael Naizu) who doesn’t mind being used to help cause a bit of friction.

While it may not be the most Christmassy movie of the many Christmassy movies you could choose to watch, Christmas Is Cancelled is a very enjoyable comedy that should make most viewers chuckle a few times. And there are enough trees and decorations to remind you that it is definitely still a Christmas movie, albeit one that has some more colourful language than most.

The script, by Sara Endsley, is full of gems, hilariously creative insults and phrases, mostly interspersed throughout the first half of the movie. It also works well by somehow showing the central relationship between Jack and Brandy as something that could work, despite the two seeming very mismatched in so many ways (not just in age). Endsley has previously written some more traditional holiday fare, including the poor Melissa Joan Hart vehicle Holiday In Handcuffs, but this is a big step up from her previous work.

Director Prarthana Mohan has only one previous feature to her credit, as well as some shorts, but she knows exactly what to do here, framing many shots to emphasise rivalry, resentment, and, most of all, the ridiculousness of the “competition”.

Parrish is an excellent lead, easy to like and stay inside with even as her behaviour gets worse and worse. Parrish is just as good, especially while being allowed to show that she is more than just a potential bit of eye candy/midlife-crisis. Mulroney helps things along with a performance that shows him still maintaining a twinkle in his eye as he deals with lower back pains. While Naizu is portraying the hip and hot young man who also has a bit of depth to him, the script helps him by acknowledging and playing with those expectations, which allows him to make a better impression than he perhaps otherwise would. Last, but by no means least, Modaff is very funny as the friend who won’t hesitate to be brutally honest about how she sees things.

So you have a witty script, decent direction, and a fun ensemble cast. You also have a finish to everything that doesn’t feel cheap and made-to-order (the only real obvious indicator of the lack of any cinematic ambition is the lacklustre soundtrack). This is an easy winner if you’re after some laughs with an adornment of tinsel and baubles.

7/10

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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Christmas Unleashed (2019)

Becca Solano (Vanessa Lachey) is a young, successful, NYC lawyer who heads back to her small hometown for the Christmas holiday, where she looks forward to visiting her grandma, Gram Jean (Jayne Eastwood). Her ex-boyfriend, Max (Christopher Russell), never left the place, which may be why she hasn't been back in years. But Becca and Max end up teaming up when Henry, the dog they used to own together, escapes in the middle of the night and goes a-wandering all through the town. As they pursue the missing pooch, and revisit some important locations in their lives, Becca and Max start to reconnect in a way that has any onlookers wondering why they ever separated.

Gaining some easy bonus points by having a cute dog in a central role, Christmas Unleashed also benefits from two decent leads who pair up well together. Neither director Nimisha Mukerji or writer Sara Endsley have the usual large selection of seasonal fare in their filmography, but they know exactly what to do in order to meet the audience expectations. Max is a perfect man (not only handsome, but he's also the head of animal services in town), and Becca only has one major issue, which is not realising that her career path will never make her as happy as marrying Max and being the mother of his children. Of course. What career could possibly bring as much joy as the maelstrom of faeces, urine, vomit, and constant tiredness that is motherhood? None.

Lachey and Russell do well in their roles, with their characters not having any major problems getting on with one another anyway. They have a relaxed and happy vibe for most of the movie, the only point of contention being the different paths they ended up on, a journey shown in flashbacks as they spend the movie looking for Henry. Eastwood may not be onscreen for too long, but she's enjoyable enough when she is (and happens to be the only person I immediately recognised from the central cast, although I had also recently seen Barbara Patrick in Five Star Christmas). There are some other people scattered throughout the plot, but this story very much stays focused on Becca, Max, and Henry.

The biggest problem with Christmas Unleashed is just how safe and inoffensive it tries to be, all the way up to a final scene that will please viewers after a happy and sweet ending, yet will also make others roll their eyes at the old-fashioned reduction of how women find true happiness. Of course, that's often the way with these movies. Some manage to present it better than others. This is like being repeatedly hit over the head with a candy cane until you wake up in the 1950s.

But you have snow, you get more than one cute dog (because Max has a number of them at his animal shelter, of course), you get lots of people viewing the leads and giving one another a sly smile and wink as they see true love redeveloping. Basically, it's an enjoyable Christmas TV movie, and that means that you should already be aware of the character motivations and the values that you'll see celebrated.

5/10

One or two people could buy me hot chocolate here.

Holiday In Handcuffs (2007)

If Holiday In Handcuffs was a layer of snow outside your front door on Christmas morning it would be yellow. It's a bad, lazy and unfunny film that doesn't even try to treat viewers as if they have more than two braincells (which may, in fact, be the case by the time the end credits roll). The plot is this - Melissa Joan Hart plays Trudie, a young woman who is due to take her boyfriend home with her for Christmas until he dumps her. This would normally be a bad thing to happen but for Trudie it's a bad thing coming after a number of bad things and she snaps. She just can't face going to visit her parents alone and so, of course, she kidnaps a man (David, played by Mario Lopez) and forces him to pretend that he is her boyfriend for the duration of the holiday trip. David is quite the catch and Trudie's mother and father (Markie Post and Timothy Bottoms, respectively) are happy to have him with them for their seasonal celebrations, even if he does react to uncomfortable social situations by "pretending" to be a kidnap victim.

I think that even that last sentence lets you know just how awful this film is. Yes, viewers are supposed to just accept that characters in this movie will believe that someone would pretend to be a kidnap victim as some strange joke they make when things get a little awkward.

Director Ron Underwood has fallen so far and it's sad to see. I mean, he's the guy who directed Tremors and City Slickers at the start of the 1990s and then he bottomed out, I suppose, with The Adventures Of Pluto Nash (which I've not seen yet, I'm simply going by its reputation) before concentrating on TV shows and TV movies like this one. Concentrating on TV shows and TV movies isn't the worst thing for a director to do but making something that stinks as badly as this is. It's not all Underwood's fault though, as the worst parts are the overall premise, thought up by scriptwriter Sara Endsley, and the increasing lack of plausibility and logic in every scene.

It doesn't help that the cast isn't great either. I've seen Melissa Joan Hart be a lot worse than she is here (in that awful Nine Dead, to cite the best example) but she's still pretty awful, as is Mario Lopez. The pair of them aren't helped, of course, by that script but it would still have been nice to see some chemistry or charm or just anything showing a spark of life in those dull eyes. Markie Post, Timothy Bottoms, June Lockhart (as grandma) and Layla Alizada (playing Trudie's friend) all fare a bit better but they're pulled down by the quicksand script. Kyle Howard and Vanessa Lee Evigan are stuck in the same boat while playing Trudie's brother and sister and I feel most sorry for Howard, who almost drags himself above the effluence in one or two moments but can't quite rinse off the bad smell. I went too far with my analogies in this paragraph but at least it saved me from having to use profane language.

I disliked Holiday In Handcuffs from, pretty much, start to finish. There were perhaps three or four moments that made me smile. Those few moments save it from an even lower rating.

3/10

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