Writer(s): Brian Sawyer and Gregg Rossen
Starring: Megan Hilty, Marcus Rosner, Teryl Rothery, and Kate Isaac
What’s with the sudden influx of
music-themed holiday movies? Or have they always been around, and I’m
just starting to notice them all at once?
Laney Blu (a name more befitting of a
porn star than a country musician) is a former country star whose
last two albums have flopped; as a result, she’s being “rebranded”
as a pop star, in a desperate attempt to reconnect with her dwindling
audiences. Given the fact she appears to be pushing forty, it’s
both sadder and more pathetic than it probably should be. She wants
to visit her mother—whom she hasn’t seen for quite some time—for
Christmas, but her strict schedule only allows for a single night
stay a couple days before the holiday. Oh, and of course, it’s in a
very, very small town.
While there, she bumps into an old
flame, who now pretty much happens to run the entire village, and learns the
hard way that true love never peters out. Conveniently—and despite no
actual footage of falling snow to be found anywhere—a massive
snowstorm renders an escape from her past impossible…but also
threatens to derail her hopes to stay relevant in the music industry.
Will she forego all the fame and stardom for another chance at love?
Or decide that…eh, I’m not even going to waste the time coming up
with another option.
This one doesn’t have the required
laughs and charm contained in the “best” examples of these kinds
of movies, but the two leads are cute together, and—in an absolute
rarity—there aren’t really any characters that are super annoying
(save for Janine, who basically despises Laney just for being
successful, but is thankfully rarely around). Even the two ones that
would have some reason to: Lori, Laney’s former singing partner
(and the love interest’s sister), who Laney suddenly left once her
own career started taking off; and Danny, Laney’s long-time
manager, go against type, and are surprisingly warm-hearted
characters who both genuinely seem to care about Laney, albeit in
different ways (what, no love triangle?).
The “side” plot where Laney decides
to find talent for the local talent show, which not only happens to
be taking place while she’s staying there, but also in an apparent
snowstorm so bad that she can’t even leave the city, adds an
unnecessary layer of absurdity and ridiculousness to a movie that
already had plenty of it. In other words, this one is as stupid as
the rest of them, at least from a writing perspective. And it seems
to take itself way too seriously, which is a dangerous game when it
comes to these types of movies, where most people are just going to
pick it apart to make fun of it.
But these issues aside—which are
typically fatal flaws in the hands of other movies—still take a
backseat to the cast, who are competent—and believable--enough to
inject the film with a contagious sense of holiday happiness, despite
being caricatures caught up in one big, all-too-familiar cliché.
RATING: 6/10
TRAILER
NOTE: Literally no trailers of this movie exist, so here's a video of the stars attempting to see who can create the cutest holiday wreath.
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