Cupid for Christmas (2021)

Director: Blayne Weaver
Writer(s): Patricia Harrington
Starring: Melanie Stone, Ryan Carnes, Natasha Behnam and Richard Kind

Every holiday season, amongst the sea of mindless, soul-crushing drivel, there is a movie that stands head and shoulders amongst its peers. A movie that somehow actually manages to create a sense of wonder about the holidays. This year, it’s Cupid for Christmas. (Okay, so technically it was made last year; I meant in terms of our holiday viewing seasons.)

Even the plot is a little weird: Ruby (real name: Cherub Valentine) is Cupid’s apprentice. The problem is, she’s pretty terrible at her job, as evidenced by the opening scene: In an attempt to make two people fall in love, she inadvertently hits the wrong person with her arrow, leading to a barroom brawl.

Cupid, played by the affable Richard Kind, is understandably appalled. He wants to retire, and sees Ruby as his replacement, but fears she’s too kindhearted for the role. So he gives her one final chance: If she can make “unmatchable” college professor Charlie fall in love by Christmas Eve, she gets the job. If not, chances are that job goes to Philomena, a much more adept assistant who wants the position just as much as her colleague.

Cupid for Christmas is full of refreshing revelations. Chief among them? Ruby never hides her powers, or ulterior motives. This is something that hinders not just Christmas movies, but movies across multiple genres. How annoying is it when characters keep their magic a secret, even from the people closest to them? Ruby is upfront with Charlie from the beginning, even going so far as to reveal the lingering promotion that’s the sole reason for her interest. Hell, she even disappears in front of bewildered strangers.

But that’s not all: She enlists the help of the students in one of Charlie’s classes to help her find a match for the lovably awkward professor. They are mocking, but well-intentioned: They know there’s potential hidden somewhere underneath the awkward and clumsy. It’s just a matter of bringing it out, something no one has been able to do. Once again, she’s up front about her intentions, and doesn’t even hide her magical abilities from them.

The strength (or weakness, as the case may be) of this type of movie is in the characters, but that’s only one area where Cupid for Christmas shines. The two leads are attractive and have some believable chemistry together, which plays a big role. But they’re also surrounded by characters who are more fleshed-out than the average holiday rom-com supporting cast. Take, for example, Ruby’s relationship with Philomena. While it could have become a heated competition given their want to replace Cupid, it never becomes mean-spirited or even competitive. Sure, Philomena attempts to sabotage Ruby’s efforts once or twice, but it’s lighthearted, playful, and clearly played for laughs, with no trace of malice.

The students are also given their own unique personalities. They’re pretty much all the standard stereotypes - the stoner, the crazy girl, the gay guy, etc. - . On more than one occasion, the interplay between Ruby and the students reminded of “A.P. Bio”, the underrated sitcom starring Glenn Howerton (of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” fame). They’re real, to the point, and give off the same silly vibe. But at the end of the day, all they want is to see their professor happy.

Obviously, it is a Christmas movie at heart: It still has its fair share of predictable scenes. But I have to confess it kept me guessing on more than a couple occasions; I wasn’t even entirely sure how the ending would play out, until the final ten or so minutes. Others - like my wife, who didn’t buy my myriad theories on possible “shock” endings - might not have such a hard time. But the way the movie consistently shuns familiar tropes had me opening my mind to dozens of out-of-the-box possibilities.

It might not explore any of them, but that doesn’t change the fact that Cupid for Christmas is an unexpected delight. It’s a unique (well, as “unique” as these formulaic affairs can be) holiday rom-com that derives glee from stomping on many of the expected tropes of the genre. And, in doing so, avoids many of the pratfalls of its peers. Yet it’s also intelligent enough to know when to stick to the formula, delivering an ending that will appeal to holiday purists.

It might not remind you how special the holidays are, but it will remind you that there are decent holiday movies out there, after all.

ENTERTAINMENT RATING: 9/10

TRAILER

LAUGHABLE LIFETIME: Mommy Group Murder (2018)

Director: Nick Everhart
Writer(s): Everhart, from a story by Samantha Shear, Michael Shear, and Dave Hickey
Starring: Helena Mattsson, Leah Pipes, Nichole Galicia, and Ryan Carnes

Wow…in ten years, will we look back on 2019 as the “breakout” year for Lifetime movies? Sure, they’ve been around for a couple of decades now, and been “popular” for much of that time, but I would imagine (and hope) that most of their appeal has been from people who love to laugh at the straight-faced absurdity of their increasingly-bizarre plots, and idiotic titles (exhibit A: this one).

Lately, though, there seems to be a rather alarming trend threatening to muck all of that up: actual talent has been seeping in to more and more of these projects. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me and we’ve been blessed with enough good luck to pick all of the good ones out of 2019’s releases. But when even a movie called Mommy Group Murder can actually be pretty good, I would say there’s a good chance the talent is rolling through all of them.

Leah Pipes (a career in porn is never too far away with a name like that) plays Natalie, a woman who suffers from postpartum depression after giving birth to her baby. Her hunky husband, Ryan, seems to be too busy with his new career to handle a crying child, and so she is left to her own devices, struggling to maintain the façade of happiness while balancing the needs of her child, and mounting feelings of loneliness.

All that changes when, through a rather horrifying (read: actually hilarious) accident involving a runaway stroller headed for a body of water, she meets Grace, a blonde woman who eventually invites her to join her “mommy group”, which is just her and two other mothers, in various stages of unhappiness, who lean on each other for support. There’s Roz, the token black woman whose husband is curiously never seen, and Maria, a nurse who suspects her husband, Tony, is cheating on her.

Despite following the Lifetime formula for the most part, this one actually seems to have enough self-awareness to throw in some red herrings: by the midway point, we really had no idea where it was headed. Sure, in hindsight it’s still the same ol’ linear Lifetime murder mystery, but there are enough twists and turns and unexpected surprises that it’s worth a watch…for about three-quarters of it, anyway.

Unfortunately, once the typically overprotective Natalie gets so obsessed with finding answers that she leaves her baby at home—with the back door left ajar (because apparently she doesn’t have an extra set of keys and can’t wait for her husband to get home)—that’s when it reverts back to the expected collection of groan-inducing clichés. It really feels like the final twenty minutes were written and filmed by someone else entirely; gone is the enticing unpredictability, in favor of a by-the-numbers psycho-stalker finish that, by the time you get there, delivers exactly what you know it’s going to, and nothing else. It’s a shame it has to end on its weakest note, especially considering it had quite a bit going for it before it hit the wall.

In what seems to be the new par for the course, the cast is uniformly strong, but special kudos must be granted to Leah Pipes, who carries much of the early picture on her shoulders. Considering the whole first ten or so minutes consists of her going through her daily routine, looking sad and crying a bunch, it could have easily been a laughingstock from the start, but she gives it her all, lending some surprising credence to her character. (The intense cheesiness of the slow-motion “runaway stroller” scene notwithstanding, but that’s not entirely on her.)  Ditto for Kate Mansi as Megan, who has a couple scenes requiring her to break down, and does so believably.

While the guys don’t have the same level of acting chops, nor the same level of emotional requirements, they manage to be an attractive bunch, giving those Lifetime-obsessed women something to marvel at as the story develops. As is usually the case, it’s the uniformly solid cast that carries the story from point A to point B and, for the most part, prevents it from devolving into (easy) self-parody.

Again, if it weren’t for a below mediocre ending, this would have been a solid contender as one of the best Lifetime movies we’ve seen; as it stands, it will just have to settle as an above-average entry that is worth a watch if you’re bored.

RATING: 6/10

STRAY OBSERVATIONS

• We saw this about two weeks ago, and I didn't take my usual set of notes; it's amazing just how little I remember of this entire experience.
• The runaway stroller scene has to be seen to be believed--it's peak Lifetime.
• When viewed in hindsight, the story is too obvious, but credit to the cast and crew for doing their best to sell it.
• The titular murder scene is surprisingly bloody for this kind of fare.
• The marketing for these movies is very inconsistent: some seem to get full-length trailers and talk show appearances, while others (like this one) are confined to :30 trailers on Lifetime's Facebook page.

TRAILER

This is the only one I could find.