Not to be confused with the similarly-titled Netflix original The Holiday Calendar, this MarVista-produced (oh God) holiday garbage is about Emily, a woman who runs a bakery in a small town (of course it’s a small town). Gerrard is the Frenchman who runs a rival bakery in a supermarket across the street. But, despite making it painfully obvious from the beginning, Emily is too stupid to realize that the man is interested in her, and what should be a quick ten-second movie is instead drawn out to feature length. Lucky us. Oh, and the movie gets its title from a random calendar that shows up in the woman’s bakery one day; the whole town has nothing better to do than to get caught up in the mystery of who the secret admirer is that sent it.
I don’t know if my definition of a “good” Hallmark-style Christmas movie is that different from everyone else’s, but this one hit every single note of annoyance for me: There are the old gossiping grandmas who clearly get a load of excitement from figuring out the mystery man; the villain attempting to take down the main star in the form of the manager of the supermarket across the street; the fact that the holiday calendar provides such scintillating mystery that the hashtag GOES VIRAL nationwide; the small-town setting; the clear and unbridled stupidity of the main girl, who believes the male baker is out to steal her business, misses all of his blatant cues of interest in her, and then suddenly, of course, falls in love with him on the writer's cue. It's like a hall-of-fame of tropes, all gathered right here for the non-discerning holiday romance lover.
Really, the only impressive thing in all of this is Zeb’s outstanding French accent, which isn’t one of those “mostly English but slightly foreign” accents, but a full-on, hard-to-understand-sometimes, put-closed-captioning-on-so-you-don't-miss-a-line heavy one that shows a dedication to this that no one else in the production had. I also liked the character of Ivy, although I still can’t tell if her hilariously deadpan delivery was intentional, or just a result of poor acting; either way, her awkwardness is a rare bright spot in a movie that’s so full of schlocky emotional drivel that it becomes almost physically painful. This is all just by-the-numbers whimsy, but not the good kind: a movie so impossibly full of holiday charm that it works in reverse, sapping all the holiday excitement from the viewer, and leaving behind a lobotomized mass of emptiness. Don’t be surprised if you walk away from the viewing unable to feel happy ever again.
RATING: 2/10
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